S. African miners resist repression Will winds from Chicago be felt in Philly?

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France-Presse (Oct. 6).

In August, all eyes turned to South Africa when the gov­ ernment brutally massacred dozens of striking workers at the nearby Lonmin platinum mine in the Marikana region. The miners were on strike for better wages and working conditions and were rallying near the mine to gain support for their demands. The African National Congress (ANC), which has been in control of the South African government since the fall of apartheid in 1994, intervened in the dispute on the side of the employer, deploying police against the workers, who were cor­ ralled into a barbed-wire enclosure and gunned down mercilessly by the cops.

But this tragic massacre only served to embolden the workers, who were outraged that the government would so flagrantly betray their interests to support private capitalists. Workers and community members organized meetings all throughout the country in the wake of the government violence. The platinum miners did not back down on their demands, but continued to fight for a better livelihood.

Their efforts managed to secure a 22 percent wage increase when Lonmin finally agreed to settle with the striking workers in September. The workers rejected a lesser contract offer earlier in the month and continued to put pressure on the company until management fi­ nally caved. Their victory shows what gains can be made from unified action and sustained strike activity.

The grievances of the platinum workers are reflective of the hardships of the South African population at large. The Huffington Post reported 30 million South Africans, nearly 63 percent of the population, live on less than 10 rand ($1.25) per day. The Marikana miners’ victory has pointed the way forward for other South African work­ ers, who have begun to follow their example. Despite the continuing repression, strikes have spread to a number of other mines, including workers mining platinum, gold, iron, and chrome.

According to Reuters, 75,000 workers, or 15 percent 10 SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 2012 PHILADELPHIA—Parents, teachers, and students in this city are being bombarded with a bipartisan cor­ porate message. We need to “grow-up,” we are told. They say we need to face the fact that there is a “real crisis” of no money for public education. Our role is to help the unelected rulers of education here, the School Reform Commission (SRC), in doing the “hard work” of deciding which schools must close. They would have us collaborate in turning over public edu­ cation to corporate interests.

The 1% “job creators,” unwilling to pay taxes, are willing to spend their millions on the deconstruc­ tion of public education and the elimination of public sector unions and jobs. With funding from corporate sponsored NGOs, the SRC hired consultants from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to devise an admin­ istrative plan for Philadelphia schools. As typical in poor communities across the country, the BCG plan would abrogate contracts, turn “failing” schools over to charters, and divide the system up to be adminis­ trated by private interests.

Fortunately, parents, teachers, and students are awakening to what is happening. Working people are in the process of making their own plans. They have had a quarter century of tossing children off a sinking ship and calling it reform. PCAPS, the Phila­ delphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools, has been formed by the Philadelphia Federation of Teach­ ers, the AFT, Action United (a community group), parents, and students. PCAPS has the potential to do the real “hard work” of building a social movement to fight for equitable fully funded public schools that would provide students, parents, and teachers with support needed to fight expanding poverty and im­ prisonment.

Over 300 people attended the first PCAPS confer­ ence on Sept. 22. Panelists emphasized two points that resonated among conferees throughout the day: One was that, given that we are up against forces that command hundreds of millions of public-rela­ tions dollars, our strength lies in asserting our own program. We cannot overcome the assault on public schools by endlessly reacting to the austerity and privatization agenda.

Secondly, our countervailing powers lie in the po­ tential of organizing our vast numbers into a social movement. We cannot accept the “there is no money” scenario because taxes on the rich are the lowest in many decades; there is always money for expanding prisons; and trillions are being spent on imperialist wars, drones, and corporate welfare.

The winds from Chicago could be felt by all at the conference, but this was true especially among the union teachers present. Apathy, alleged by some to exist in the ranks of the Philadelphia teachers, was nowhere to be seen. Teachers spoke up in the work­ shops. They are ready to work with the community and signed up to work with PCAPS.

The emerging spirit of teachers eager to work with community forces was also witnessed the fol­ lowing Monday evening when a community church meeting of about 700 was held at the Enon Baptist Church. Though the message from the pulpit leaned in the direction of the SRC’s “hard choices” mantra, the discussion among teachers, who came out in no­ table numbers, showed anger at the SRC plan and evident willingness to join with community in a fight back.

The sense this reporter got from teachers at both meetings is that they are angry. They want to have a discussion within their union and are willing to work to save their union and renew public education. There is a real need to hear more from Chicago teach­ ers about how they did it. n

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SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 2012 11 ... Chi. teachers (continued from page 12: “Chicago teachers defeat plan to gut union, schools”) to hire more support staff if funds become available.

Some of this new language will be hard to enforce, since it is dependent on new gambling money from a bill that has not been passed yet. CPS already rou­ tinely violates the classroom size language. However, preserving and winning contract language will put the union in a better position to continue the fight for well-funded schools.

In an agreement made prior to contract negotiations, CPS agreed to hire 600 laid-off teachers in music, arts, and world language subjects in order to lengthen the school day, as Emanuel had unilaterally imposed for this school year, without substantially lengthening the teachers’ workday. Emanuel had wanted to lengthen teachers’ workdays without a raise in salary.

• The contract won enhanced language on grievance definitions and arbitration for discipline cases. Im­ proved short-term disability and maternity benefits. Doubled annual supply fund per teacher to $250.

• New language on recall rights: Teachers whose schools close will be able to follow their students to the schools they are transferred to if positions are available. Laid-off teachers will also be placed on a recall list. New teaching positions will have to be filled 50% from the recall list, a compromise since the union wanted 100% filled by laid-off teachers. An­ other weakness of the recall language is that teachers who are rated as “unsatisfactory” by a new evaluation system will not be eligible for the recall list. Despite these weaknesses, the recall language is a major gain; previously, Chicago teachers had no district-wide se­ niority, only seniority within their school.

Among the major concessions was a new teacher evaluation system, in which lower scoring teachers would lose seniority protection for layoffs. The evalu­ ation system was mandated by SB 7, and the union did negotiate to limit the use of standardized tests in scoring to 30%, the minimum allowable by law. There will also be an appeal process for teachers scoring in the lowest category.

The evaluation system will not subject tenured teachers to layoffs in the contract’s first year. None­ theless, many teachers could face layoff based on sub­ jective evaluations that do not take into consideration the conditions their students face outside the class­ room and the lack of resources inside it. Severance pay for laid-off teachers will also be reduced to six months down from 12 months.

Despite not winning all of their demands and agree­ ing to some concessions, the overall contract has more wins than losses. CTU faced many obstacles, including a hostile collective bargaining environment, as unions everywhere have given historic conces­ sions, including teacher unions in large urban school districts, where locals, often with the encouragement from the national leadership of the AFT, have agreed to pay cuts, merit pay, and given up seniority entirely.

The union also faced a mayor who was emboldened by aggressive support from the ruling class and the White House to bust the CTU as an example to all teacher unions that the even the militant CTU could not defeat the attempt to destroy public education. SB 7, quite intentionally, reduced CTU’s ability to bar­ gain, making all issues except for wages and benefits permissible topics of bargaining instead of manda­ tory, meaning CPS was not required to bargain class sizes, working conditions, seniority, and other work­ ing conditions.

The threat of injunction hung in the air, as CPS may well have convinced a judge that the CTU strike was illegal since the outstanding issues in bargaining were non-economic. All along, CTU rejected the limitations on bargaining, continuously proposing non-economic issues such as class size and air-conditioning.

In the face of this, CTU decided to fight back, and they fought hard. By striking and unleashing their social power to push back against an unabashed attempt at union busting in an era where so many unions have simply laid down in the face of pressure, the Chicago teachers have provided a shining example to all work­ ers of how to win and to defend past gains. A blueprint for union struggle The strike laid out the initial outlines of a blueprint for every union on how to fight back. CTU proved that when unions battle they win the sympathy of other working people, union and non-union, who know from their own experiences that the bosses and poli­ ticians are seeking to cut wages and public services. CTU rejected the all-too-common practice of secret negotiations and publicized what was being discussed with their membership and the public.

The union reaped the benefits of longstanding ties with neighborhood and parent organizations. The solidarity from community groups during the strike was no fly-by-night alliance. CTU leaders have been working for years with groups across the city against school closures and other issues, building mutual trust between the union and community and parent organizations.

The internal organization of the rank and file was critical. The ranks were constantly mobilized both before and especially during the strike to provide vis­ ibility to the struggle and provide a sympathetic im­ age of dedicated teachers fighting City Hall. The strike authorization vote alone put to bed the myth that teacher unions don’t represent rank-and-file teach­ ers. Even more critically, the unions’ democratic func­ tioning made possible an engaged membership, who felt genuinely that this fight was theirs to win.

The officers kept nothing from the ranks, explain­ ing each step of the way their strategy and goals and seeking membership approval and input through­ out. This was most exemplified in the House of Del­ egates vote to suspend the strike. The officers did not try to sugar coat the deal and muscle through a yes vote, as is standard in most unions. When the House of Delegates wanted more time to examine the tenta­ tive agreement, the officers deferred, and encouraged a democratic discussion among the ranks.

This fightback by teachers resulted in an important advance for working people. The collective strength and determination of the Chicago teachers dented, at least for the moment, the 1%’s onslaught on the pub­ lic services that serve the 99% and the workers who provide them. Chicago teachers returned to work in high spirits knowing they had done so.

Almost all teachers wore red on the first day of school as a sign of solidarity and strength. Chicago teachers know they have won a battle, but the war continues. CPS is planning to close over 100 schools in the next few years and plan to continue opening new non-union charter schools. Massive budget cuts are on the horizon, and the Chicago teachers’ pension is also in crisis after a decade of CPS’s failing to make pension contributions. Successfully beating back Rahm Emanuel’s attempt to bust their union has put CTU in a strong position to continue the battle to de­ fend their union and public education.

Union militants and class-struggle fighters took note of the fact that CTU President Karen Lewis became somewhat of an overnight national figure because she led a major challenge to a Chicago Democratic Party administration intent on breaking the third largest teachers’ union in the country. The often-repeated call for Lewis to run for mayor echoed an important sentiment for working people to run their own can­ didates for public office, as opposed to the present subordination of the union bureaucracy to the antiworker Democratic Party.

As is often the case when working people engage in serious strike battles, the question is posed as to what weapons they have available in the political arena. The need for a labor party based on reinvigorated, democratic unions in alliance with the oppressed has never been more striking.

The CTU strike also showed the critical need for la­ bor solidarity. While the CTU example brought some picket-line support to the teachers, the reality of the labor leadership default was glaring in Chicago when virtually every public employee union signed indi­ vidual and major concessionary contracts, leaving Chicago teachers to go it alone. Labor’s classical soli­ darity slogan, “An injury to one is an injury to all,” was honored in the breach.

If there ever was a time to call for a Chicago Con­ gress of Labor—not to mention a national labor con­ gress—to meet the concerted ruling-class offensive against all workers, this was it. Had the major pub­ lic employee unions, as well as broader union forces, convened such a congress and considered a proposal Scott Olsen / Getty Images for a united solidarity pact against future cutbacks and erosion of hard-fought workers’ gains, the defeat­ ist notion that working people have no alternative but to accept devastating blows could be blown asunder.

Despite receiving merely lackluster support from the labor movement, Chicago teachers and their parent and community allies persevered and significantly set back the major efforts of the ruling parties to impose a stinging defeat. It is only a matter of time until the example of the CTU becomes the norm, and no union will be compelled to take on the bosses and their kept media and courts alone. “Solidarity Forever,” the mu­ sic and fighting spirit that brought the organized la­ bor movement into being, will once again be shouted out strong and clear by workers everywhere. n ... U.S. war threats (continued from page 1: “Washington threatens new military strikes in Middle East”)

litical terms and have only wrought more devas­ tation in the region.

A delegation of U.S. antiwar activists, organized by Code Pink and including leading members of the United National Antiwar Coalition, is on an investigative and solidarity tour of regions of Pakistan that have been hit by U.S. drones. The delegation’s march to the Federal Administrative Tribal Areas—where they have hoped to hold a rally against drones—has been big news in Paki­ stan and worldwide. The delegation members intend to interview families of drone victims, and will report their findings to meetings planned for a number of U.S. cities upon their return.

Meanwhile, Israel and the United States contin­ ue to saber-rattle and make war threats against Iran. At a recent meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benja­ min Netanyahu made headlines with his stageprop display of a cartoonish bomb diagram, ap­ parently depicting that Iran was nearing the final stage of acquiring a nuclear weapon and could have enriched enough uranium to create a bomb as early as summer 2013.

While his speech was the butt of many jokes in the media, such as on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, the implications of Israel’s policy objectives are not so funny. Netanyahu stressed that sanctions and diplomacy were doomed to failure, imply­ ing that military action may be necessary to stop Iran. He stated: “Iran uses diplomatic negotia­ tions as a means to buy time to advance its nu­ clear program.” While it is still unclear whether the U.S. or Israel are ready take military action in the Persian Gulf, activists must be on guard to oppose these ongoing attempts to demonize Iran in order to justify a new war.

The United National Antiwar Coalition is at the forefront of the struggle against war and politi­ cal repression. UNAC co-sponsored a series of actions around the country, set for the anniver­ sary of the war in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, to dem­ onstrate against imperialist wars abroad and to defend civil liberties at home. UNAC and their allies in New York City, including Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), the Islamic Leadership Council of NY, the Muslim Peace Coalition, and Black is Back, held a rally outside the state build­ ing in Harlem. Actions also took place in Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Boston, Philadel­ phia, and other cities. n

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Sitthixay Ditthovong / AP