Protecting Children by Punishing Whistleblowers

Carol Buchanan, a former Moraga School District teacher (in the SF Bay Area) was told by students in the 1990s that science teacher, Dan Witters, had been sexually abusing them. She reported it to school officials, but was ignored and punished, Cheryl Hurd reported last week. While she was never fired, Buchanon claims the district did strongly urge her to take a “leave of absence,” which she ultimately did, retiring after a 25-year career.

Last year, University of California, Berkeley swim coach, Kristen Cunnane, came forward saying she was abused by Witters and another teacher. Cunnane later release the following statement: “I can’t believe how many people at the school knew about the sexual abuse and how many warnings the district ignored. To find out that there was someone at the school actually trying to help us and that she got punished for it is incredible.”

While it is tragic that so many children were thrown to the wolves by administrators who were either too lazy to do the right thing or too concerned with covering up the potential bad PR, it should no longer come as a surprise, either. Indeed, it is relatively common for large institutions to value their own reputations over the safety of children (and the law). Consider the way in which the Catholic Church, at virtually all levels of its hierarchy, has protected accused priests. This case is also strikingly similar to the case of Mark Berndt, in LAUSD, who had been reported by numerous parents, and allowed to remain in the classroom for decades, before finally being arrested last year. In Berndt’s case, not only did the district fail to investigate thoroughly the prior claims, but it also punished innocent teachers, by firing the entire staff at Miramonte Elementary school, even though only two of its teachers had been accused of abuse.

Today In Labor History: April 8

April 8, 1864—13^th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, banning chattel slavery, but allowing a continuation of wage slavery and the forced labor of convicts without pay. (From the Daily Bleed)

April 8, 1911 – 128 convict miners, mostly African-Americans jailed for minor offenses, were killed by a massive explosion at the Banner coalmine near Birmingham, Alabama. While the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, which occurred just two weeks earlier, elicited massive public attention and support for the plight of immigrant women working in sweatshop conditions, the Banner explosion garnered almost no public sympathy, probably due to racism and the fact that they were prisoners. (From Workday Minnesota)

Emma Goldman 1911 (Library of Congress)

April 8, 1916—Emma Goldman was arrested for giving a lecture on birth control. (From the Daily Bleed)

April 8, 1937—The UAW struck a GM plant in Ontario to win union recognition. (From the Daily Bleed)

April 8, 1952 - President Harry Truman sent the U.S. Army to take over the nation’s steel mills to avoid a strike. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled the president’s action to be illegal. (From Workday Minnesota)

Today In Labor History: April 7

April 7, 1919—A Workers Republic was declared in Bavaria by the anarchists in the fledgling soviet republic, against the wishes of the Communists in the government. The Socialists sent in troops, massacring over 700. (From the Daily Bleed)

April 7, 1933—Prohibition ended, allowing unions to once again freely organize workers in the bars and workers to once again drink freely. As Oscar Wilde said, “Work is the curse of the drinking class.”

April 7, 1947 - The National Federation of Telephone Workers (NFTW) launched the first nationwide strike against AT&T and Bell. As many as 300,000 telephone workers walked off the job. By mid-May 18, 37 of the 39 member unions had won new contracts with raises. NFTW became the Communications Workers of America later that year. (From Workday Minnesota)

Today In Labor History: April 6

April 6, 1712 - New York City saw its first slave revolt, which occurred just north of Wall Street, in response to the execution of twenty-one blacks for killing nine whites. Conditions were ideal for a revolt, as black slaves and freemen worked in proximity to each other, making communication and planning easier. In the aftermath of the revolt, 70 black men were jailed, with six “committing suicide” in custody. Twenty of those arrested were executed by burning and one was executed on the “breaking wheel.” New regulations were also put into place, prohibiting black men from meeting in groups larger than three or carrying firearms. Free men were also denied the right to own property. (From Workday Minnesota and Wikipedia)

Tupac Amaru

 April 6, 1781—Tupac Amaru was captured in Peru after being denounced by a turncoat. (From the Daily Bleed)

April 6, 1919—Bavarian Raterepublik was declared, with novelist B. Traven (e.g., Death Ship, Treasure of the Sierra Madre) serving on its Central Council of Workers, Soldiers and Farmers. (From the Daily Bleed)

April 6, 1968—Oakland police attacked the Black Panthers headquarters and assassinated an unarmed teenager, Bobby Hutton. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today In Labor History: April 5

Élisée Reclus (Image from Wikipedia)

April 5, 1871—Élisée Reclus, was taken prisoner during the Paris Commune. (From the Daily Bleed)

April 5, 1954 - Workers struck the Kohler Company in Wisconsin. The walkout was part ongoing labor disputes that lasted 30 years at the company. There had also been strikes from 1934 to 1941 and another, from 1954 to 1960. The latest dispute lasted until December, 1965, with the company agreeing to pay $4.5 million in back wages and pension credits for committing numerous unfair labor practices. (From Work Day Minnesota. For more on the strike, see here and here)

April 5, 1989 - The United Mine Workers launched their strike against Pittston Coal Co., eventually winning concessions by Pittston on February 20, 1990. The strike started in response to Pittston’s termination of health care for widows, retirees and disabled veteran miners. During the strike, there were 2,000 miners camped out daily at Camp Solidarity, and up to 40,000 total engaging in wild cat strikes, civil disobedience, picketing, occupations and sabotage. The strike reduced Pittston’s production by two-thirds, while over 4,000 strikers were arrested during the strike. (From Workday Minnesota and Wikipedia)

Today In Labor History: April 4

Luddite Leader Ned Ludd (engraving, 1812, from Wikipedia)

April 4, 1812 – Luddites rioted at Stockport, England, to tried and halt the advancement of machines that would replace workers. (From Luddite Chonology and the Daily Bleed)

April 4, 1950 – Longshoremen union leader Harry Bridges was convicted of lying about being a Communist. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today In Labor History: April 3

April 3, 1913 - Pietro Botto, socialist mayor of Haledon, N.J., invited the Paterson silk mill strikers to assemble in front of his house. 20,000 showed up to hear speakers from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Upton Sinclair, John Reed and others, who urged them to remain strong in their fight. (From Work Day Minnesota)

Strike leaders Patrick L. Quinlan, Carlo Tresca, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Adolph Lessig, and Bill Haywood.

 The Patterson strike lasted from Feb. 1 until July 28, 1913. Workers were fighting for the eight-hour workday and better working conditions. Over 1800 workers were arrested during the strike, including IWW leaders Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Five were killed. Overall, the strike was poorly organized and confined to Paterson. The IWW, the main organizer of the strike, eventually gave up. (From the IWW: Its First Seventy Years, by Fred Thompson and Patrick Murfin).

April 3, 1917 – After the U.S. declared war, sailors, escorted by police, destroyed the IWW building in Kansas City. The action inspired similar attacks in Detroit, Duluth and other towns that had a large IWW presence. (From the Daily Bleed)

April 3, 1948 – Cheju Massacre in Korea. Between1948 and 1949, one of the 20th century’s least known genocides occurred. On the island of Cheju-do, 30,000 civilians were massacred (10% of the island’s population) by the South Korean army, Cheju-do police and the U.S. military, in the name of fighting communism. However, the governor of Cheju told American intelligence that the real number was closer to 60,000. (From the Daily Bleed, with more information here and here.)

Today in Labor History-April 2

April 2, 1863--Bread riots occurred in Richmond, Virginia, as a result of a drought the previous year,
combined with a blockade by the Union and overall civil war-related shortages. Food riots occurred throughout the South around this time, led primarily by women. During the Richmond riot, women broken into storehouses and shops, stealing food, clothing and jewelry before the militia was able to restore order. (Source: Wikipedia)

April 2, 1903--Mexican police fired on more than 10,000 protestors, killing 15 and wounding many more. People had been protesting the reelection of General Bernardo Reyes as governor of Nuevo Leon, who was aligned with Mexico's brutal dictator, Porfirio Diaz. (From the Daily Bleed)

April 2, 1908--Italian police shot and killed workers at a funeral for a comrade who was killed in an industrial accident.(From the Daily Bleed)

 April 2, 1919--A Canadian ban on the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) was lifted at WWI came to an end. (From the Daily Bleed)

Back to the “Golden Age” for Those in Their Golden Years?

In his quest to find a “middle ground” (read appease the ruling elite), President Obama has been meeting with Republicans behind closed doors to come up with a plan to dismantle Medicare. According to the New York Times, Obama has proposed cost savings by combining Medicare A and B, which would significantly increase seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses.

Currently, Medicare A is used for hospital visits and has a deductible of $1,184 per year, while Medicare B, which is used for out-patient services and doctors’ visits, is only $147. Patients can see their doctors as often as they need to and typically use Medicare B (the cheaper of the two programs) much more frequently. Combining the two into one program would necessarily result in higher costs for patients, as the new deductible would fall somewhere in between and, more significantly, patients would be paying the higher deductible for the more common outpatient services and doctors’ visits.

Obama has been saying for months that he is open to compromise on Medicare if that is what is necessary to get Republicans to support a tax increase. The Times suggests that the Medicare deal would likely end Republican threats to privatize Medicare and even end debate on the matter. However, Democrats and Republicans still remain far apart on “revenue increases,” the euphemism being used to indicate that the final deal might not include any tax increases at all and could even include further austerity for the middle class, like an end to the mortgage interest deduction on their income taxes. In typical Obama fashion, he started bargaining from a position of weakness and offered the store without winning anything concrete in return.

Increasing Medicare costs is a risky move politically, as seniors have among the highest rate of voter participation in the country and have almost universal support for the program. Medicare, which was implemented in 1965, along with the expansion of Social Security, contributed to a decline in poverty among seniors from 30% in 1965, to less than 10% today, the WSWS reports.

Inexpensive health care for seniors has also contributed to their increasing longevity. According to a Harvard study, 45,000 Americans die each year because they lack health coverage. The study also found that uninsured working-age Americans had a 40% higher chance of dying prematurely than their insured counterparts. Slashing Medicare benefits and making them more expensive will likely increase the death rate for seniors, too, because they will be less likely to see their doctors for routine checkups and maintenance of chronic illnesses.

Consequently, the new plan could take seniors back to a time when they were dying much sooner from treatable conditions and had a worse quality of life because of poverty.

The “debate” over Medicare has little to do with resolving any sort of budget crisis and everything to do with reducing government spending on “entitlements” that benefit the majority of Americans so that there is more tax revenue available to subsidize low taxes for the rich and to subsidize their businesses. The rich already have Cadillac insurance plans, subsidized by their employees, and not only have no need for Medicare themselves, but find it outrageous that any of their taxes should go toward keeping people alive who are no longer “productive” (read: exploitable at the workplace).

Today in Labor History—April 1

April 1, 1649 – Diggers occupied St. George's Hill, near Cobham, Surrey, England, seizing land to hold in common and to plant. Other Digger communities followed in Northants, Bucks, Kent, Herts, Middx, Leics, Beds, Glos & Notts.

April 1, 1882 – Coal Heavers strike against the Suez Canal Company in Port Said.

 

April 1, 1920 – T-Bone Slim's The Popular Wobbly published in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) "One Big Union Monthly".

April 1, 1924 – West Virginia miners walked out at the Coal River Colliery Company (CRC). The strike was unusual because CRC was an investment venture of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE), with stock owned by members of the Brotherhood. The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) called the strike because the company refused to pay the current union wage scale.

April 1, 1932 – 500 hungry school children in tattered clothes marched through Chicago's downtown section to the Board of Education offices to demand that the school system provide them with food.

April 1, 1946 – The 400,000-strong mine workers strike was put down by the U.S. military on orders of President Truman.

April 1, 1961 – Local 101 began a 6-week strike against Brooklyn Union Gas Company.

April 1, 1963 – The longest newspaper strike in U.S. history ended on this date. The nine major papers in New York City ceased publication over 100 days ago.

(From the Daily Bleed)