Teacher Union Militancy

Last month, I attended a session dedicated to the Chicago Teachers Union struggle at the Labor and Working Class History Association conference in New York. A couple of members of the New York teachers union were on the panel, talking of the struggle to retake their own union from the moderate compromising bureaucrats that were going along with whatever Michael Bloomberg proposed. I’m quite curious to see how the CTU fight affects other teachers unions across the country? Do we see an uprising of rank and file militancy over the attacks on public schools? In Washington at least, that has happened. The Washington Teachers Union ousted its president this week, with a reformist slate of candidates promising to stand up to Rheeism elected. It’s extremely rare for unions to kick out leaders, so this is a big deal, especially since the current president was actually elected on a reformist slate in 2010 and then didn’t live up to it. A new victory in Newark also suggests important growth in rank and file militancy.

Good to see and hopefully this becomes commonplace.