Today in Labor History—December 17

Deborah Sampson painting (from Garden of Praise website)

December 17, 1760 - Deborah Sampson was born on this date in Massachusetts. Sampson disguised herself as a man in order to fight with the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. She fought in several skirmishes with British forces before being wounded and discovered She was subsequently discharged from the army. (From Workday Minnesota)

Simon Bolivar, 1800, painted by Jose Gil de Castro, 1825

 December 17, 1830 – Latin American liberationist Simón Bolivar died on this date in Santa Marta, Columbia. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 17, 1875 –Violent bread riots occurred on this date in Montreal.(From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—December 16

December 16, 1912 – The French CGT union launched a General strike against the War To End All Wars. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 16, 1970 – The Polish government pacified coastal cities where workers had rebelled against high prices, by shooting shipyard workers, killing between 50 and 150, including soldiers who refused to shoot people). (From the Daily Bleed)

December 16, 1977 - Eight women in Willmar, Minnesota, launched the first bank strike in U.S. history.  (From Workday Minnesota)

Today in Labor History—December 15

December 15, 1792 - The U.S. Bill of Rights was adopted promising freedom of speech, religion, the press, and "the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." (From Workday Minnesota

December 15, 1882 – The women tailors union, first women's trade union in Australia, was formed on this date. (from the Daily Bleed)

December 15, 1941 – The AFL labor union pledged not to strike in any defense-related industries for the duration of the war. (from the Daily Bleed)

December 15, 1965 – In an attempt to outdo their patriotism during World War II, the AFL-CIO pledged its "unstinting support" for the U.S. war effort in Vietnam. (from the Daily Bleed)

December 15, 1970 – Polish youth and workers torched the Gdansk Communist Party headquarters and quietly watched it burn. Elsewhere in Poland, ZOMO riot police shot miners striking at "Manifest Lipcowy" mine in Jastrzebie, Upper Silesia, wounding four. (from the Daily Bleed)

December 15, 1992 -- 300,000 coal miners struck against the Solidarity government in Poland. (from the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—December 14

Daneil DeLeon, 1902 (from Wikipedia, public domain)

December 14, 1852 -- Daniel DeLeon was born on this date in Curacao, West Indies. DeLeon was one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He was also a leader of the pro-political action faction within the IWW that hoped to create socialism through the ballot box. Soon after the founding of the IWW, his faction lost out to the pro-Direct Action faction, led by Big Bill Haywood, and eventually broke off to form the short-lived Workers International Industrial Union. (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)

Errico Malatesta (from Wikipedia, public domain)

 December 14, 1853 – Italian anarchist theorist and militant Errico Malatestawas born on this date in Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Naples. (From the Daily Bleed )

December 14, 1957 – Dave Beck, General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, was convicted of embezzling from his own union. (From the Daily Bleed )

Polish 1970 protests in Gdynia: body of  Zbyszek Godlewski) carried by the demonstrators.(from Wikipedia, public domain)

 December 14, 1970 – Strikes began in Gdansk, Poland, and spread to Gdynia, Szczecin, other industrial centers, with widespread factory occupations. Rioting toppled the Communist government, only to see it replaced with a new military regime. Labor resistance and protest continued in Gdansk, leading to the formation of Solidarnosc, which toppled the Communist government once and for all in the 1980s. (From the Daily Bleed )

December 14, 1992 – 300,000 coal workers struck against Poland’s "Solidarity" government. (From the Daily Bleed )

December 14, 1995 – 33,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers ended a 69-day strike at Boeing, winning increases in pay and health benefits and job protections against subcontracting.. (From Workday Minnesota)

Today in Labor History—December 13

December 13, 1924 - American Federation of Labor founder and President Samuel Gompers died at age 74. One of his most famous quotes was "We want more schoolhouses and less jails, more books and less arsenals, more learning and less vice, more constant work and less crime, more leisure and less greed, more justice and less revenge (From Workday Minnesota)

December 13, 1971 --  Workers in Namibia struck against the contract labor system imposed by the South African government, marking the beginning of popular support for southern African liberation struggles. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 13, 1981 – Communist General Jaruzelski imposed martial law in Poland for the next three years to suppress and destroy the 10-million strong Solidarnosc trade union workers' movement, during which at least 10,000 activists were. This date is now known as "Solidarity Day."

Detroit Wild Cat Strike Shuts Down 2 School Districts

They say Michigan’s new Right to Work (RTW) law is now a done deal. That didn’t stop thousands of teachers and other union members from taking the day off to protest at the state capital this week. In Detroit, so many teachers called in sick that two school districts, (Taylor Public Schools and Warren Consolidated Schools), were closed for the day, according to Detroit News. Detroit Public Schools (DPS) remained open, though Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) President Keith Johnson did urge members to go to Lansing.

The state’s new RTW bills would make it illegal to require employees to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment. This would significantly reduce unions’ ability to raise funds to support their members, while allowing freeloaders to reap the benefits of union-negotiated contracts without providing any material support for this service. RTW states have lower wages and lower union membership than other states.

Pundits and many union activists are accepting the new RTW laws as a fait accompli. However, the fact that two unions were able to easily shut down their districts with wild cat sick outs demonstrates the power teachers and other workers actually have to force a reversal of the laws. While it may be illegal for teachers to strike in this situation, the law cannot stop teachers from exercising their rights to take days off for medical or personal necessities. Such actions can be organized informally and done on a rotating basis (i.e., rolling sick outs) to minimize the loss of individual sick days, while maximizing the impact.

On the other hand, workers need to get over their fear of breaking the law. Civil disobedience has a long and important history in this country, especially in the labor movement. Strikes and unions have both been illegal in the past, but workers still formed unions and continued to engage in job actions, often getting arrested and beaten in the process, and occasionally getting killed or deported. Breaking unjust laws (e.g., any restriction on the right to strike) in the name of improving personal and collective liberties, as well as working and living conditions, is both necessary and just.

Today in Labor History—December 12

December 12, 1805 - William Lloyd Garrison was born on this date. Garrison was a leader in the abolition movement and published the Liberator, which had as its motto: "Our country is the world—our countrymen are mankind." (FromWorkday Minnesota)

December 12, 1973 – Women members of United Steelworkers of America (Local 1066) protested sex discrimination, in Gary, Indiana. (From the Daily Bleed)

Will Bar Exam Turn Teachers Into Shysters?

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has launched a new initiative to raise entry standards for teacher-preparation programs, calling it a “bar exam” for teachers. My first thought on hearing the news was that they were trying to turn us into shysters, but then I remembered that we are already considered disreputable and unscrupulous by much of the public.

What's black and tan and looks good around a teacher's neck? A doberman!

So how will the bar exam change matters?

The AFT and its bigger sister, the National Education Association (NEA) have both been tripping over each other to prove to the public that they accept and intend to remedy every criticism made against teachers and their unions. This has included a tacit acceptance of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and its testing mania, as well as evaluation reform and Value-Added models for assessing teachers.

So when the free market “reformists” insisted that there were too many incompetent teachers out there, it was only natural that the teachers’ two largest unions should jump to defend their members by conceding that it has just been too damned easy to become a teacher up until now, and new, more stringent entry requirements were necessary to protect our precious children.

Of course there are significant differences between lawyers and teachers which make this metaphor just plain silly.

For one, lawyers stand to make anywhere from two to several hundred times more than teachers, thus providing the incentive to spend thousands of dollars on tutoring and training courses to help them pass their tough bar exam. With teacher pay abysmally low and working conditions deteriorating daily, why should anyone want to invest the time and money into a professional teaching degree, as well as training for the tougher new test, when it could cost them years of debt and all the stress and anxiety that accompany the job?

Another consideration is that it costs society little if an aspiring law student fails the bar exam. Even if s/he retakes the exam and repeatedly fails it, it simply means one less lawyer. Last I heard, there was no shortage of lawyers, particularly if one has the money to hire one. But a “bar exam” for teachers implies lots of failure, which could easily translate into a significant teacher shortage. The number of students will not magically decline in unison, so class sizes will necessarily rise, while many students will find themselves being taught by non-credentialed, long-term substitutes. Thus, rather than improving the quality of teachers for greater numbers of students, a “bar exam” for teachers could wind up causing more students to have mediocre or lousy teachers and greater competition for help from the good teachers.

Of course, my criticisms are only valid if the AFT’s new exams truly are as difficult as actual state bar exams, which can have failure rates as high as 30-50% (see here and here). While it remains to be seen how challenging these exams will be, the AFT is also calling for teaching candidates to have 3.0 GPAs and higher scores on college entrance exams, in order to get into teaching programs in the first place. This could significantly reduce the number of people eligible for credential programs, or encourage them to get their undergraduate degrees from degree mills and less rigorous universities. This would further reduce the number of high quality entry level teachers.

AFT President Randi Weingarten, a woman who earns over $600,000 year NOT working the classroom, said, "It's time to do away with a common rite of passage into the teaching profession—whereby newly minted teachers are tossed the keys to their classrooms, expected to figure things out, and left to see if they and their students sink or swim.” (From Ed Week)

Her comments show a great deal of ignorance and disdain for teachers who act as mentors and master teachers to help novice teachers find their feet and grow professionally. Indeed, there is only so much a teaching candidate can gain from a university classroom—the rest must be learned in front of a K-12 classroom, through student teaching, peer observations and actual practice. It is absurd to think that any teaching program or high stakes test can produce a cadre of perfectly molded teacher droids.

Could more stringent requirements work in the favor of existing teachers? If the AFT’s proposed reforms are adopted, it would almost certainly create a teacher shortage. Theoretically, this could drive demands for higher wages, as districts compete more aggressively for fewer qualified applicants. In reality, however, it seems unlikely that districts, states or the federal government will pony up the money to pay teachers enough to make the new requirements worth their trouble. If budgets continue to be anemic, teachers’ salaries are most likely to remain stagnant, regardless of any future shortage.

The AFT’s proposal is yet another lousy solution to an imaginary problem. Sure, beginning teachers say they feel unprepared to start teaching. However, this is not because they didn’t have to pass a tough test. It is because keeping a bunch of kids focused, motivated and interested in the subject matter is no easy task. Getting them to behave and show respect for you and themselves is equally challenging. No exam can prepare a teacher adequately for this.

On the other hand, one might wonder why a union is focusing on making it tougher to become a member. Isn’t the job of unions to protect the interests of their members? Does the AFT believe that teachers who have jumped all these new hurdles and made it as teachers will somehow win the respect of Bill Gates and Michelle Rhee, not to mention comfortable salaries and better funding and support for the classroom needs?

No amount of obsequiousness and self-blame will get the free market education reformers to back off, give up their privatization schemes, or cease their union busting.

Today in Labor History—December 11

December 11, 1917 -- Thirteen black soldiers were hanged for alleged participation in a riot in Houston, Texas. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 11, 1927 – A Soviet-style Commune began in Canton, but was wiped out after three days by the Russian Communist-supplied Kuo Min Tang. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 11, 1951 – An Illinois State mine inspector approved coal dust removal techniques at the New Orient mine in West Frankfurt, Illinois. Ten days later the mine exploded, killing 119 workers, because of coal dust accumulations,. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 11, 1981 - More than 500 people were massacred by the Salvadoran military in the village of El Mozote in what may have been the largest 20^th century massacre in Latin America. Men, women and children were tortured and systematically executed by the U.S.-supported regime in their attempt to wipe out unions, leftists and peasant activists. (From Workday Minnesota)

The Deplorable State of Adjunct Faculty Compensation

It is not just K-12 public school teachers who are getting squeezed by budget cuts, stagnant pay, declining working conditions and attacks on tenure. Today, nearly 70% of all college and university faculty are non-tenured, part-time adjunct faculty (according to a recent piece in Truth Out), with no job security and generally lower pay and fewer benefits than their tenured colleagues.

Many of these professors find themselves having to accept teaching positions at multiple universities and colleges just to make enough to support themselves, sometimes having to commute to two or three different campuses in one day. It is not uncommon in the community colleges for adjuncts to earn as little as $2,500 per class. For adjuncts teaching 3-4 classes per semester, this translates to $15,000-20,000 per year, often without any benefits.

Some adjuncts make good money. At UCSF, for example, adjunct professors can earn six-figure salaries. However, their job security is based entirely on their ability to compete for scarce research grants, as the university provides them with little or no additional funding and makes no commitment to support them if their grants run dry.  These adjuncts, who must constantly contend with the threat of losing their labs and their income, often put in 60-80 hour weeks just to keep their grants flowing and, consequently, suffer an incredible amount of pressure and stress.

A number of factors have been contributing to the problem, including the nation’s economic crisis, which has exacerbated many states’ existing budget difficulties. In order to close their deficits, universities have not only been cutting classes and raising tuition for their students; they have also been squeezing their employees by cutting wages, benefits and teaching assignments. At the same time, the number of college graduates competing for these jobs has been rising. This may be part of the reason why the number of people possessing PhDs who receive public assistance has tripled over the last three years. Between 2007 and 2010 the number grew from 9,776 to 33,655.

However, the decline in tenured faculty positions started well before the current economic crisis. The New York Times reported in November, 2007, that tenured faculty had already become the minority on campuses across the country. 30 years ago, adjuncts made up only 43% of faculty nation-wide, whereas by 2007 they comprised 70% of faculty. The Times attributed the trend to administrators’ desire to save money and have greater “flexibility.” What this really means is greater ease in manipulating, coercing and firing, since part-timers and adjuncts, in general, have little or no job security and must toe the line and keep their mouths shut if they want to keep their jobs.

It also means more money is available for executive compensation, which has been on the rise even as tuition has climbed and employee compensation has declined. The San Francisco Chronicle reported this week that executive pay at the nation’s private colleges climbed 2.8% between 2009 and 2010 (the last year in which records are available). The median compensation for the nearly 500 presidents of private universities with budgets of at least $50 million was nearly $400,000, with 36 executives earning more than $1 million annually. However, executive compensation at public universities has also been rising rapidly. California Senator Leland Yee recently introduced legislation that would bar the state’s UC and CSU systems from giving any raises or bonuses until two years after the latest fee hikes.

As with many aspects of the education system, the interests of teachers are linked to the wellbeing of students. Several studies have found that freshmen taught by part-timers are more likely to drop out. This is probably due to the fact that part-timers and adjuncts, in general, have more work to do and less time to do it, forcing many to reduce or abandon office hours. They are more likely to accept excessive or unreasonable course loads in order to increase their salaries or to be eligible for benefits. They also are less likely to advocate for better conditions for themselves and their students out of fear of getting fewer (or no) classes in the coming semesters.