Teachers Struggles Around the World

Croatia has been cutting its spending in order to close its deficit and improve its credit rating as it prepares to enter the European Union. It has been doing this by slashing public services like education and healthcare. In response, teachers and nurses have been striking against government plans to cut their pay. 70% of Croatia’s education workforce took part in a strike last Thursday, according to the Teacher Solidarity website.

In the German state of Saxony, teachers have begun a series of “warning” strikes for “equitable education funding” (also from the Teacher Solidarity website). More than 20,000 people (75% of Saxony’s education workers) took part in a November 16^th strike, with thousands participating in rallies in Leipzig, Dresden and other cities. One of the strikers’ demands is a shorter work week for older teachers to ease their workload and provide more openings for younger teachers, who make up a minority of Saxony’s teaching staff.

Meanwhile, in Hawaii, teachers have been participating in work-to-rule actions every Thursday in an attempt to roll back concessions imposed on them by their governor two years ago (from Labor Notes). The 2011 contract, which expires in 2013, included cuts to their pay and benefits. Their union negotiated a compromise contract, which included performance pay, evaluation reforms and a two-tiered compensation system for new hires. Not surprisingly, the teachers voted this contract down.

The teachers are arriving just before classes start and leaving immediately at the end of classes, temporarily ending after school tutoring, club supervision, lesson planning and grading papers. In lieu of their normal unpaid labor before and after school, the teachers have waving signs to passersby to promote their cause. They are hoping to bring up wages (starting salaries for Hawaiian teachers are only $31,000) and resist pressure to accept performance pay.

As in many states, Hawaiian teachers are barred from striking until after negotiations have resulted in impasse. Rather than waiting until then, when it would be harder to mobilize teachers, as well as public support, they have begun their protests and outreach early. So far, teachers are saying that students and parents are supporting their actions. The key will be to maintain both high participation rates in their actions, as well as public support, until their demands are met.

Walker’s Anti-Labor Law Null and Void

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

The good news is that a Wisconsin judge has ruled Gov. Walker’s anti-labor law, Act 10, null and void, restoring collective bargaining rights to Wisconsin’s public sector workers and the right to collect dues through payroll deductions. The bad news is that even if his appeal is rejected Wisconsin’s public sector workers will be back to where they were prior to the enactment of Act 10.

Key sections of Walker’s controversial anti-labor law were ruled unconstitutional by Dane County Judge Juan Colas. According to the Nation, Madison Teachers Inc. director John Matthews, whose union had filed the lawsuit, declared that “We are back to where we were before Scott Walker moved to take away our rights.” That is to say that they have the same low wages, the same mediocre health coverage, the same weak pension benefits, and the same weak unions (also, see here) that would rather send their members home from the nation’s largest workers’ protests in a generation with the promise of electoral victories that never come, than fight their rulers in the streets through a General Strike or even smaller local strikes.

As long as Wisconsin workers occupied the state building and the streets and were not on the job, they were cutting into the profits, ease and sense of security typically enjoyed by the ruling class. This is when they were at their most powerful and this is when they had the greatest chance of demanding and winning better working conditions, wage increases, shorter hours. Granted, the protests had originated as a struggle against Act 10, which which the unions spun as an attack on collective bargaining rights and the automatic dues check off. However, Walker had also demanded a 20% pay cut, which angered the rank and file. And even if the protests had begun with an emphasis on restoring collective bargaining, large sustained workers’ struggles and General Strikes can result in increased worker confidence and empowerment, inspiring them to demand more.

It is also important to remember that collective bargaining is a means to an end. It is an efficient way to win improvements in working conditions and pay, but only when backed with the threat of a strike. Without the force of a job action, the bosses have no incentive to give the workers anything and they generally don’t. Unions need to put the time and resources into organizing their members to strike, educating them as to why strikes are necessary and powerful, and prepare them to do so at the drop of a hat. Otherwise, they cannot accomplish much through the collective bargaining process.

The sad reality is that most unions today are terrified of strikes and avoid them like the plague. They simply do not invest the time and resources necessary to prime their members for the possibility of a strike, choosing instead to spend their resources on political campaigns and lobbying. And they sometimes actively discourage strike actions.

The case in Wisconsin was particularly telling.  Not only did the unions discourage a General Strike, but they essentially ignored Walker’s demand for a 20% pay cut, focusing almost entirely on preserving collective bargaining rights and automatic dues check offs. Some were even willing to concede the pay cut in exchange for winning back collective bargaining. Yet, what good is collective bargaining if it isn’t used to win improved working conditions and pay?

Jobs Trump Wages: Ironworkers Great Sellout

(Image From Recollection Books)

In an economy with high numbers of unemployed workers who require a year or more on average to find work, it is understandable that workers would fear for their jobs and a secure livelihood. However, for many industries, particularly manufacturing, the problem has been ongoing for the past forty years, as U.S. manufacturing has downsized or moved off shore. The problem has exacerbated the decline of unionism, particularly in the private sector, as union manufacturing jobs disappear and either never come back at all, or get replaced by lower waged, nonunion jobs.

New York’s unionized iron workers, fearing they will be squeezed out of jobs by cheaper nonunion workers, have voluntarily agreed to a 15% cut in compensation (roughly $14 per hour in wages and benefits), in hopes of undercutting their nonunion colleagues. According to the New York Daily News, 86% of union members approved the deal.

This brings up a couple of disturbing questions. What is the point of being in a union if it is not improving wages, benefits and working conditions? If union workers voluntarily reduce their pay to a level commensurate with nonunion workers and must continue to pay union dues, they are actually earning less than their nonunion colleagues. Such a strategy is not likely to preserve union jobs for long, as workers start to see fewer benefits to remaining in the union.

Then there is the question of why there are so many nonunion workers out there to undercut their pay and benefits. If the union was really doing its job, it would be aggressively organizing nonunion jobsites and creating an atmosphere in which it is more painful and expensive for employers not to hire union workers.

What Kind of Union Asks for 10 Furlough Days?—UTLA Does

There is no question that Los Angeles Unified School District is facing a serious financial crisis. They are millions of dollars in the hole and trying to recoup that money on the backs of teachers. In a particularly audacious attack, they demanded that United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) accept 20 furlough days next year (see 4LAKids Blog), which amount to the loss of nearly a month’s pay or an 8% pay cut.

It is easy to appreciate UTLA’s desire to protect its members’ jobs. However, in order to do so, UTLA actually asked for (and got) 10 furlough days, which I suspect most members will find unacceptable.

UTLA has stated that its priority is to restore jobs, save educational programs and protect class size.

If this is true, then UTLA cannot seriously be considered a union. Indeed, what kind of union asks the boss for 4% pay cut?

The goals of protecting positions, programs and class sizes are all great goals, particularly for students, but they are just a tiny part of teachers’ working conditions and remuneration. A real fighting union starts with the assumption that the workers and the bosses have an adversarial relationship (even if they treat each other nicely) in which the bosses try to extract more work for less money from the workers. The union’s role is to fight for better remuneration and working conditions for their constituents, (i.e., the teachers), NOT their clients (i.e., students).