Today in Labor History—December 21

Escuela Santa Maria, 1907

December 21, 1907 – The Santa María School massacre occurred in Iquique, Chile on this date. The massacre was committed by the Chilean Army against striking saltpeter (nitrate) miners and their wives and children. The number of victims was never determined. However, reliable estimates put the death toll at over 2,000, and some sources put it as high was 3,600. (From the Daily Bleedand Wikipedia)

The First Get-Away Car? (Caricature of the Bonnot Gang)

 December 21, 1911 – The get-away-car was first used in a bank robbery on this date in France. The Bonnot Gang, a group of anarchist bandits, pulled off the first bank robbery using an automobile, in broad daylight, in the midst of a populous Paris district. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 21, 1916 – The Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World) were outlawed on this date in Australia. (From the Daily Bleed)

A Bloodied Nurse from the film The Battleship Potemkin

 December 21, 1925 – Serge Eisenstein's silent movie The Battleship Potemkin premiered on this date in Moscow. This silent film, which inspired many later film greats, depicts the 1905 mutiny of sailors against their Czarist commanders during the Russo-Japanese war. (From the Daily Bleed)

Baby Carriage Falling Down Steps in Odessa (also from the film, The Battleship Potemkin)

 December 21, 1986 – More than 50,000 students demonstrated for democracy and freedom in Shanghai's Peoples Square. (From Workday Minnesota)

Exchange Students Win $200K Settlement for Exploitation at Hershey Plant

Last year there was strike at Hershey Chocolate by 300 foreign students living here on J-1 work-study visas. According to Democracy Now, it was the first time that foreign students had engaged in a strike against their employer.

Their actions are now starting to pay off. Over 1,000 students from Eastern Europe and Asia recently won more than $200,000 in back wages for their work at Hershey in a settlement with the U.S. Labor Department, according to the Huffington Post. The feds have also imposed fines on three groups involved in staffing for minimum wage, overtime and safety violations: SHS Group, a temporary workers firm; Exel, Inc, the company that oversaw the plant; and the Council for Educational Travel-USA, a nonprofit that imports foreign students on J-1 travel visas.

Hershey, however, has so far gotten off without consequences, even though they benefited financially from the exploitation of the students.

The students had to pay between $3,000 and $6,000 to participate in the “cultural exchange program,” a modern day form of job sharking run by the U.S. government. In reality, many were forced to do heavy lifting from 11:00 pm until 7:00 am and toil under sweat shop conditions, when they were supposed to be sleeping and studying for their day classes. They were also forced to live in company housing with rents far above market value, similar to the company towns of the early 20^th century, where workers were paid in scrip.

Interestingly, they did learn a lot about American culture, just not the white-washed American Dream fantasy that the program had hoped for. They not only learned that American capitalism will take advantage of every opportunity to abuse people for private gain, but they also learned that Americans themselves are hungry, homeless, unemployed and desperate for a stable income. (The student workers were given jobs at minimum and sub-minimum wage, while local residents were suffering high rates of unemployment and poverty).

Today in Labor History—December 20

December 20, 1790 - The first American cotton mill began operation in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The mill, owned by Samuel Slater, employed children aged 4-10. (From workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)

December 20, 1905 -- An 11-day General Strike began in Russia to bring down the Czar.

December 20, 1957 -- Brittish working class singer/songwriter Billy Bragg was born on this date. Bragg was a strong supporter of the 1984 miners strike and has been an outspoken critic of fascim, racism, sexism and homophobia.

 

The Ghost of Tom Joad, by Woody Guthrie

December 20, 1968—John Steinbeck died on this date. He was most famous for novels written from the perspective of working men and women, the poor and downtrodden, including East of Eden, Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, Tortilla Flats and Cannery Row. (From the Daily Bleed)

Union Bosses, Which Side Are You On? . . . Capital, Of Course

Oliver Burkhard, head of Germany’s IG Metall (IGM) trade union, will soon be taking over as head of personnel at the multination Thyssen Krupp. His annual income will rise to €2 million, or more than €160,000 a month, according to the World Socialist Website.

Many have accused Burkhard of being a turncoat. However, his new job is really only a change in title. Union bosses maintain a unique and opaque position in the economy, serving as the enforcers of capital by pushing their members to toe the line, accept concessions and avoid work stoppages at all costs, while at the same time portraying themselves as advocates for workers.

When the bosses want to cut the workforce or impose wage and benefits cuts, they cry poverty, insist that factory closings and outsourcing are inevitable without union concessions, and the union bosses rush off to convince their members that the end is nigh, and a few “small” concessions now will save the majority of their jobs.

It is true that the union bosses sometimes criticize the corporate bosses or complain about their treatment of the workers, but this is just part the tacit agreement between labor and management. The unions are permitted to complain and even make occasional threats so as to appear like advocates for the workers, an image that is necessary for their success as agents of the employers, so long as there aren’t any serious disruptions to production and profits.

This is true not just in Germany, but everywhere. One recent example was the occupation of the Wisconsin State House, in which the unions not only refused to support a General Strike or even protracted sickouts, but actively worked to get everyone back to work, promising an electoral fight that was completely ineffectual.

In Germany, it is not uncommon for union bosses to become personnel managers. In fact, personnel managers must be approved by the employees in charade that merely gives the impression that the workers have some say in their working conditions. While they get to vote for this “representative” in management, they do not get to vote on how they will be managed. They cannot vote to take over management of the industry themselves. They do not have the right to fire the bosses, do away with wages or end their exploitation.

While the pay is considerably higher than when he was a mere union boss, it will also be tougher for Burkhard to maintain the illusion that he is an advocate for the workers, as he will be expected to slash jobs and wages to help Thyssen Krupp recoup some of the €5 billion they lost last year. This should not be too difficult for Burkhard, however, as he brokered a deal with Opel in 2009 that forced wage cuts on its employees.

Today in Labor History—December 19

December 19, 1907 – 239 workers died in a coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 19, 1983 - The Greyhound bus strike ended when members of the Amalgamated Transit Union ratified a sell-out contract slashing wages and benefits. (From Workday Minnesota)

December 19, 1984 – 27 workers at Wilberg Mine died due to a speedup disaster in Orangeville, Utah. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 19, 2001 – The Argentine government declared a state of siege to stop the worst looting and rioting in a decade sparked by austerity measures and poverty. (From the Daily Bleed)

Green Cards For Sale For Union-Busters

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

While non-profits and student fundraising groups help build schools in poor communities in Africa and Latin America, wealthy investors from China, Nigeria and other nations are spending tens of millions of dollars to build superfluous school classrooms, libraries and gyms for U.S. charter schools.

Under the federal EB-5 program, wealthy foreigners can effectively purchase U.S. immigration visas for themselves and their families if they invest at least $500,000 into certain development projects, including private charter schools, according to Reuters. All they have to do is create 10 new jobs (even at minimum wage) and maintain them for at least two years. This year the feds approved 3,000 applications for the EB-5 program, nearly double last year’s total.

It’s a great deal for the foreign investors, as they can reap large rewards for their investments, while living legally in the U.S. as they manage their investments. At the same time, charter schools are always looking for more capital to supplement the state and local revenues they already receive. The additional investment capital, combined with lower labor costs and fewer contractual restrictions (most charter schools are not unionized), allows them to do numerous things that would be impossible for traditional public schools (e.g., longer school days, force teachers to be on-call at night and on weekends for homework help, replace teachers with non-credentialed monitors and force students to spend long hours in front of computers).

The influx of foreign capital makes it easier for charter schools to proliferate, increasing the ratio of public schools that are run by private (and in many cases for-profit) charter companies, while at the same time increasing the ratio of non-unionized teachers and unskilled pseudo-teachers. In New Orleans, for example, where charter schools now make up the majority of public schools, unionized teachers now comprise a small minority of working teachers.

Aside from making charter schools much more profitable by reducing wages, benefits and job protections, this back door form of union busting benefits other regional businesses by lowering average wages and benefits in the area. Without tenure and seniority protections or the backing of a union and union lawyers, teachers are less likely to speak out in defense of their students, colleagues or working conditions. Overall, it increases worker passivity and submissiveness, since any criticism or questioning of management could cost one her job.

However, one might reasonably wonder why foreign investors need to be bribed with green cards if charter schools are such a great investment?

The fact is that charter schools are still a relatively risky investment. The IRS is planning to scrutinize their tax-exempt status more closely, according to the Reuters article, especially if they rely on for-profit management companies, as many “non-profit” charters do. At the same time, many charters are being shut down by regulators or going out of business because of poor financial performance. Six Missouri campuses of Imagine Schools, one of the nation’s largest for-profit chains, were recently shut down by state regulators because of poor academic performance, according to the Reuters article. Charters from the Aspire chain have also been revoked, or not renewed, in California. Close to 15% of the 6,700 charter schools that started over the past twenty years have since closed, mostly because of financial troubles, according to the Center for Education Reform.

The EB-5 program also serves the interests of Obama and Duncan’s school privatization agenda by attracting more investment capital to help support fledgling charter schools, while relieving the feds of some of the financial responsibility at a time when there is considerable resistance to government spending on social programs. It is telling that the federal government is unwilling to provide funds to lower class sizes in traditional public schools or to pay teachers a decent wage. It is also telling that the feds have made it easier for wealthy foreigners to live here comfortably as they exploit communities, children and teachers, while refusing to pass the Dream Act or any meaningful immigration reform that would prevent the disruption of immigrant families who are already living here, often with children who are here legally or who have lived here since early childhood.

LAUSD Molestation Settlement in the Works

After the arrest of Miramonte Elementary School teacher Mark Berndt for molestation, 16 law firms filed suit on behalf of 126 students and 63 parents and guardians. Former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso has overseen a mediation process between the families and Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). According to the 4LAKids blog, a settlement may be reached by late January. Two lawyers, representing 26 of the students, were not participating in the mediation and planned to file separate lawsuits. However, the district believes they will ultimately convince them to participate in the settlement.

The lawsuits allege that LAUSD officials did nothing to protect children from the accused teacher. Indeed, there is considerable evidence that the district lost Berndt’s personnel files and failed to act on numerous parental complaints about him. (For more on the history of the case, click here, here and here).

District compliance counsel, Gregory McNair, said the district didn’t want children traumatized by testifying in court, 4LAKids reports. While this is likely true, far more significant factors are cost and damage control. Having to fight several protracted legal battles is extremely expensive, particularly when the district will likely lose and have to pay lawyers’ fees in addition to punitive and personal damages. A protracted legal battle would also likely bring to light even more examples of incompetence on LAUSD’s part and exacerbate public anger and mistrust with the district.

Today in Labor History—December 18

December 18, 1829 – Scientist Jean-Baptiste Lamark died on this date. (From the Daily Bleed) Lamarck was best known for his discredited theory of inheritance of acquired traits, the idea that characteristics acquired during the parents’ lifetime would be passed on to offspring. It was later discovered that traits of the parents are passed down to offspring through DNA, while acquired traits (e.g., losing a finger in an accident or getting larger muscles from weight lifting) do not involved changes to the DNA that can be passed down. Yet, over the past decade, with the discovery of epigenetics, Lamarck’s theory has been shown to be true under certain circumstances. Some experiences that occur during the parents lifetime that do not change the DNA, but add epigenetic markers to the DNA, are not only passed on the their children, but can be passed on to grandchildren and great grandchildren, too. (For more on epigenetics, see the NOVA special “The Ghost in the Genes.”)

Horse-Powered Thresher

 December 18, 1830 - The "Swing Rioters" went on trial on this date. The rioters were agricultural laborers who fought for a minimum wage during the early decades of the 19th century. During this time, England shifted from self-sufficient, open fields to farms rented by tenant farmers. Technology, including the increasing use of threshers, and a surplus of labor, drove down wages. Farm workers in the "swing" counties of the south and east of England responded by destroying farm machinery. Hundreds were arrested, jailed and executed. (From Workday Minnesota)

December 18, 1878—Joseph Stalin was born on this date and went on to slaughter between 10 and 60 million peasants, workers and other mostly innocent civilians. (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)

Chicago Teachers Tell the Rich to Back Off

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is calling for a march and protest on December 18 to “Tell the Fat Cats:  Get Your Paws Off Our Public Schools.”

While I could make many of the same criticisms of this that I have of the Occupy Movement (see here and here), I would rather call this a step in the right direction. (Plus, I really like their graphic for the protest).

(From the CTU website)

Certainly this is a reformist demand that lacks a meaningful critique of capitalism or public education’s role in bolstering it. Yet a mainstream craft union is unlikely to ever do this anyway. At least the CTU is placing some of the responsibility for their district’s crumbling infrastructure and their members’ declining working conditions directly on the backs of the rich—who have been tripping all over themselves and Chicago’s children in the race to convert CPS school sites into charter schools—rather than the usual vague union complaints about poor funding and belt-tightening by everyone.

The biggest problems with public education are not due to any defect in the schools or teachers. Rather, poverty and the wealth gap are the primary causes of the achievement gap. No reform that is currently on the table even attempts to address this. Certain social reforms, like those of the New Deal and the Great Society served to reduce poverty and close the wealth gap, and graduation rates climbed to their highest levels in response. But these economic gains have largely been reversed over the past 40 years, with an accompanying decline in wages and living standards for the majority of Americans.

Much of this decline has been due to a restructuring of the tax code, allowing the wealthy to keep a greater percentage of their wealth, causing a net decline in the revenue available for social services, like public education.

We are not likely to see the unions demanding an end to capitalism or even a reduction in poverty (though this reform would likely do far more to solve public education’s myriad problems than all the other current pseudo-reforms combined). However, it is not unreasonable to think that other teachers unions might start following the CTU’s lead and at least push back against the corporate-led “reforms” that are weakening the unions, deskilling the teaching profession and undermining the quality of education just so they can make a quick buck.

Explicable School Massacres—Violence is American as Apple Pie

The horrific tragedy at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School last week sickened the nation and was particularly appalling, as most of its victims were between the ages of 5 and 10. AFL-CIO Boss Richard Trumka lamented the “inexplicable horror” of the massacre, while President Obama called for “meaningful action” to stop the seemingly endless wave of violence (e.g., Wisconsin Sikh temple, Colorado movie theater, and California’s Oikos University massacres earlier this year).

Even though the shooter’s motives are not yet known, there is much that is explicable about the incident, contrary to Trumka’s claims to the contrary. For example, it is probably safe to generalize that a person who walks into an elementary school and slaughters twenty young children is disturbed, if not insane. Apparently, there is some indication that family members were aware of his emotional troubles.

Whether or not they had tried and failed to get him the help he needed, the fact is that it is unnecessarily difficult and expensive to obtain behavioral or mental health care in this country. There are long waiting lists to get into addiction treatment centers. There are millions of Americans who have no health insurance and millions more who have such poor quality insurance that they cannot see a competent practitioner for such routine conditions as depression or anxiety.

While we are unlikely to ever eradicate mental illness, we could significantly reduce the rare acts of violence and relatively common fear, depression, anxiety and relational problems that accompany mental illness with a comprehensive health care system that provided free and accessible physical and mental healthcare to everyone.

Another simple solution would be to enact stringent gun control laws. The U.S. remains the only wealthy country in the world in which guns can be so cheaply and easily obtained, and it continues to have the highest rate of gun deaths because of this. According to the New York Times, American kids are 13 times more likely to be gunned down than kids in other industrialized nations. Overall, there are 30,000 gun-related deaths each year in the U.S. The Connecticut gunman apparently walked into his mother’s home, grabbed a few of her numerous weapons, killed her and then let loose in the elementary school—something that would have been far more difficult if guns were not so readily accessible.

It is ironic that Obama made his most recent school massacre address from the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, named for Reagan’s press secretary who was shot and permanently disabled in a 1981 assassination attempt. Brady has since become a strong advocate for tougher gun control laws. Yet during Obama’s press briefing, his own press secretary, Jay Carney, said this was “not the day for a debate on gun control” and, as president, Obama has consistently refused to make any serious attempt to strengthen gun control laws. Furthermore, Obama is the first U.S. president to assert the right to assassinate anyone anywhere in the world, including U.S. citizens, having killed well over 3,000 people, mostly civilians, with drone attacks under his watch--hardly the actions of a president who wants to take meaningful action to stem the wave of violence.

Also not on the table for discussion are the numerous other national social dysfunctions that that contribute to violence in our communities. For example, pundits and advocates for children often decry violent video games, movies and music videos, but there is no evidence that any of these things increases the chances that a child will be violent toward his peers or as an adult. However, there is considerable evidence that adults sent into battle sometimes come home and behave violently toward their families, coworkers or random individuals. Yet, rather than increasing diplomacy and decreasing warfare, the U.S. has been doing the opposite over the past few decades, attacking Granada, Panama, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, just to name a few. And while there is increasing acknowledgement by the military of the causes and consequences of PTSD, suicide rates in the military and wait times for access to VA services remain high.

In addition to the occasional acts of violence that can be directly linked to the post-traumatic stress that often accompanies combat, the cultures of the military and police are about social control through physical coercion and, if necessary, lethal force. Soldiers and police are trained to shoot to kill. Suspects and enemies who do not cooperate fully and quickly are physically assaulted. Thus, it should come as no surprise that rape in the military occurs far more often than in the general population. In 2010, 19,000 soldiers were sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers and an estimated 20% of all female soldiers are sexually assaulted during their service in the military. In the general population, rapes are estimated to occur at a far lower rate (some studies suggest fewer than 1 per 100,000 people annually).

However, even for civilians, violence is often a normal part of life. For example, the majority of cases of violence and sexual assault against children are perpetrated by adult members of their own families, often on a regular and ongoing basis. Equally banal is the violence and threatened violence faced by women, people of color and gay and transgendered people—violence that is rooted in bigotry, but that is facilitated by lax law enforcement and prosecution and by right wing punditry and religious intolerance.

Capitalism, itself, also contributes to violence. For example, corporations weigh the costs of litigation versus potential profits when determining how safe to make their products, with the consequence that consumers are often killed or maimed by defective products. Some corporations—particularly those operating in poorer countries—facilitate or participate directly in violence against their employees and community members (see here and here for just 2 examples). However, U.S. corporations have a long and sordid history of killing American workers in the name of profits (e.g., Ludlow Massacre, Homestead Strike, also see Modern School’s Labor History Timeline for many more examples), while they often kill and maim their employees through speed-ups, poor maintenance and law safety precautions.

Regardless of whether one has a good job, or a job at all, the capitalist system creates a division of wealth and power that leads to want, privation and uncertainty for the majority. This frequently makes people feel cheated and angry, though their anger is often misplaced and directed against fellow workers or family members instead of the bosses.

In response to this most recent school shooting, the only change we are likely to see is increased vigilance by school districts (indeed, we are already seeing this), with improvements in their protocols for dealing with intruders and other emergencies. While this is an important precaution that can reduce the amount of harm done by an intruder (or a violent insider), it will not end school rampages if the other causes of violence are ignored and weapons remain so accessible.