Accountability for Legislators

A Small Victory for Teachers and a Big Loss for Billionaire Ed Deformers.

Illinois legislators, with the backing of billionaire Ed Deformers, tried to kill tenure and teachers’ right to strike with their Performance Counts Act. However, the union-crushing bill was killed in January, thanks to strong resistance by Illinois teachers.

Legislators received large donations to support the law, some receiving checks as high as $175,000, from Stand for Children (SFC) an organization based in Portland, Oregon, with affiliates in seven states. Their largest funder is Bill Gates. In total, SFC pumped $600,000 into key Illinois legislative races. While SFC started as a grassroots organization, headed by Marian Wright Edelman (Children’s Defense Fund), and initially had the backing of many teachers, they are now clearly in cahoots with corporate interests that want to profit off the billions of tax dollars spent each year on education.

Had it passed, the Performance Counts Act would have:

Linked teachers’ evaluations to student test scores

Fired or demoted teachers after a single unsatisfactory evaluation

Blocked unions from bargaining over layoffs, school closures, class size, staffing, length of school day, or use of technology

Banned teachers from striking

Unions Continue to Pursue Anti-Teacher Policies

Illinois teachers unions should be celebrating the victory and moving on to more proactive issues, like abolishing NCLB or booting the corporate interests completely out of the game. Instead, they are continuing to pursue their own alternative plan, Accountability for All, which still gives up some seniority and tenure rights (See Left Wing Sell Out).

Losing the Right to Strike in Illinois

The billionaire boys club, headed by Bill Gates and Eli Broad, is at it again. They blamed the schools for failing our students. They attacked teachers and unions, too. The unions fought back, albeit, in a mostly impotent war of words. Nevertheless, they are still seen as a meddlesome impediment by the billionaires in their lustful grab for the $600 billion spent annually on public education.

In order to smooth out this speed bump, the billionaires have enlisted lawmakers in Illinois to fast track legislation called The Performance Counts act, which will ban the use of the strike by teachers and make it easier to fire them. Legislators predict they will be able to pass the law by early January, 2011. The legislators supporting the bill have been receiving large contributions, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, from a front group called Stand For Children (SFC), which is funded primarily by Bill Gates.

While STC grew out of The Children’s Defense Fund and initially had the support of some Oregon teachers and other progressives, they are staunchly anti-union. Geoffrey Canada was their initial board chair. They have been active in six other states, trying to limit tenure protections and implement performance pay schemes.

If ever there was a reason to strike, it would be now, preemptively, to let the state know that teachers are organized, angry, and unwilling to accept any further attacks on their rights and working conditions. However, Chicago Teachers Union President, Karen Lewis, has said that a strike is off the table, so long as the school board honors their contract.

One Step Backward, Two More Steps Backward

Prior to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 1934, unions did not have the right to strike, making all job actions wildcat. The NLRA was passed after a wave of militant and successful strikes during the great depression. NLRA legitimized unions, but also set strict rules for their behavior, setting the tone for their increasing bureaucratization and collaborationist tactics.

In two weeks, Illinois teachers may find themselves working under labor conditions much like the pre-NLRA days, with local school boards acting with greater impunity and arrogance in cutting pay, benefits and job rights. Teachers will find themselves having to take wildcat actions in order to defend their rights and those of their students. However, the union bosses will continue to act as if we are in the post-NLRA era, playing by the rules, trying to appear “reasonable” and “professional,” and increasing their level of collaboration.