Lessons from the Chicago Teachers Strike

Here is a sobering analysis of the Chicago Teachers Strike that raises some very good questions. It seems that all sides are claiming a victory here, but from the point of view of the trade union movement what was really achieved? It is critical to keep in mind the crucial background in which the strike took place are the efforts of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and others like him to push the key austerity agenda of the privatization of public services like education and schools (and other public services like transportation via the mechanism of Infrastructure Trusts). Like most things that pass for social policy considerations these days, the purpose of shutting down schools and so-called education reform is not the improvement of education so much as it is an effort to convert public schools into private, charter schools.

The ongoing attack on labor and public sector employees and unions is at its root just this effort to transform public services like education into a center for private investment and profit such as that offered by Charter schools. Just as the privatization of public utilities created and continues to create new markets – creating new sources of profits for businesses and opportunities for the private accumulation of wealth – the privatization of public schools is a bonanza for businesses, while its benefit to most people is questionable at best. In this context the Chicago teachers’ strike must not be seen as an offensive strike. Rather than striking to secure better working conditions and better pay, per se, the Chicago teachers’ strike is a defensive, conservative strike, one in which labor is merely attempting to hold onto not only the wages and benefits that were gained through decades of struggle and which are now under threat, but to their jobs themselves.

Even a cursory look at the contract concessions must yield the conclusion that rather than achieving a victory, or even a stalemate, the contract under consideration represents a loss for labor in the ongoing class war of attrition. And though teachers may be announcing that they’re happy to be returning to work, and Emanuel appears to have won this battle, given the state of the economy and the environment, it may very well be that the next strike won’t be a conservative one like this. Rather, it may be a total, permanent strike. Read More>>>