Showing posts with label West Virginia teacher strike. Show all posts
Showing posts with label West Virginia teacher strike. Show all posts

Monday, March 29, 2021

Take me home, West Virginia - How will Red for Ed respond as Extreme Voucher Law passed to decimate Public Ed?

I see some of my colleagues salivating over the state teacher strike in West Virginia. Don't hold you breath here in NY. Maybe when the conditions of teachers ... Ed Notes, 2018 -

March 29, 2021 by Norm Scott

There was much hope here in Mudville about a trigger of militancy in NYC -  but I pointed out teachers in West Virginia were eating pet food - don't forget  - it's the economy, stupid, not the ideology.

[ See Diane Ravitch comment:West Virginia Passes Sweeping Voucher Bill].

One of my fave warriors against ed deform, Jennifer Berkshire with her writing


partner Jack Schneider, authors of Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door were interviewed today with one of my fave podcasters, Sam Seder, on Majority Report - listen to the wide ranging discussion of how ed deform got into the door and where it intends to take us to the end of public ed  - (https://youtu.be/ZX05_S17u9M). But let me focus on just one aspect of the interview.

Jennifer (also check out their podcast - Have you Heard) pointed out that West Virginia legislature passed the most oppressive voucher law you can imagine which fundamentally can kill the entire WV public school system and turn the state into what happened in New Orleans. I've been worried since the pandemic began that this will be an opportunity to tie a noose around public school systems - and watch all the people who are screaming about how important it is for kids to be in school jump ship to virtual learning when it becomes convenient. Jennifer pointed out how fundamentally this is all about saving money and since labor is the major cost of education, de-unionizing and de-skilling teachers is the goal. Since teacher unions are one of the major bulwarks of the Dem Party, I see the threat of killing our unions as greater than the voter suppression movements by Republicans.

The West Virginia story also got mentioned in the libertatian anti-union publication of Mike Antonucci - with maybe a bit of glee with the snarky Remember West Virginia?  But you know I still like Mike's coverage because it takes me out of the bubble and also feeds my own libertarian and cynical streak.

I get the snark since the left made such a major deal about the Red for Ed movement that began in WV and spread to other red states - Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona. The teacher unions in these right to work states are fairly weak and without a grassroots movement spanning left and right, the ability to resist Republican moves to destroy the movement will be weak if there is an resistance.

My thoughts went back to how a red state which gave Trump his biggest per centage victory despite a long pro-labor history had a wildcat teacher strike that closed every school in the state. There are no charters in WV and at the time I thought the powers that be will never allow teachers to wield such power again. And the recent voucher law was retribution.  

The question is what will be the response and if there isn't one does that mean red for ed is wounded or dead?


The West Virginia teacher strike action three years ago (see wiki) and the New Yorker take) led to all kinds of speculation and inspired entire books, even from the Unity caucus resident leftist Leo Casey has a book  - and an interview with Randi - The Teacher Insurgency: A Conversation with Leo Casey and Randi Weingarten. but even more so from groups to the left of Leo - Labor Notes, Jacobin - see links at the bottom.

I covered the strike as did James on the ICE blog and started searching links on Ed Notes and google but there is so much out there I realized why I don't blog so much anymore - providing full context takes work. Do a full seach for West Virginia in the search box on top of the side panel and you will get loads of stuff but here a few quick hits:

West Virginia: Do-It-Yourself Class Struggle - Jacobin. One lesson from the West Virginia teachers' strike is clear: nobody is coming to save us. We'll have to do it ...

West Virginia Mountain mamma, take me home ... - Ed Notes Online

And I wrote: I see some of my colleagues salivating over the state teacher strike in West Virginia. Don't hold you breath here in NY. Maybe when the conditions of teachers ... [fill in the blank  along the lines of SUCK AS BAD.

Given that many teachers in WV were probably Trump supporters, the strike made for some interesting analysis and we did hear that socialists and DSA played a role in the organizing efforts. Also interesting was the role the state and national unions from the AFT and NEA played both in the level of cooperation and cmpetition. I talked to some teachers at the time who told me some school had members of each and they do compete for members. But as usual, they were tailing behind the rank and file - both right and left and center wing in militancy, often urging caution. 

One of the outcomes of the strike was the formation of a statewide rank and file caucus - WV United Caucus - along the lines of other left DSA type caucuses like in Chicago, Los Angelos and MORE in the UFT. (I had intended to write about them when I first heard of them). They seem to have been somewhat quiet and we would expect some reaction to the voucher law.

Mike Antoucci also covered the red for ed strikes from the libertatian-right and here is his take today where he mentions that the caucus didn't win any positions in the state union elections but I imagine those elections are not very democratic. 

Here is his full piece today - with a bit of the usual cynicism.

https://www.eiaonline.com/intercepts/2021/03/29/remember-west-virginia/

Remember West Virginia?

We haven’t heard much from West Virginia since teachers there launched the 2018 strike that inspired the #RedforEd movement. It looks as though when the shouting stopped, there wasn’t anything to write about.

Most of the educators who ran for office in 2018 lost, and those that won were mostly incumbents. The group that organized the strike didn’t fare any better in internal union elections. The WV United Caucus has been silent for months.

The press moved on to other pastures, leaving Jayme Metzgar of The Federalist alone to report this:

Last week, with very little noise or fanfare, the West Virginia legislature passed the most expansive Education Savings Account program in America. While ESAs in most states are only open to a small percentage of children, the new West Virginia Hope Scholarship will be available to 90 percent of schoolchildren in the state. Every child currently enrolled in public school is eligible, plus those newly aging in.

“The unions don’t like the bill, but our phones aren’t ringing. We aren’t getting emails. It’s nothing like last time,” said the chair of the Senate Education Committee.

There has been little follow-up to the changes, or lack thereof, in the #RedforEd states. Is no news good news?

 And some links from the left:

Apr 26, 2019 — Review of Red State Revolt, by Eric Blanc (Verso, 2019). There has been a tendency to mythologize West Virginia's nine-day education strike.
Mar 9, 2018 — By: Eric Blanc. West Virginia's historic wildcat strike has the potential to change everything. West Virginia teachers, students, and supporters hold signs on a Morgantown street as they continue their strike on March 2, 2018 in ...
Feb 20, 2019 — By: Eric Blanc. Within hours of going on strike, West Virginia educators defeated a dangerous education privatization bill. They've again ...
May 15, 2019 — In his new book Red State Revolt: The Teachers' Strike Wave and ... writer and former teacher Eric Blanc details the history of these teachers strikes while ... As rank-and-file West Virginia strike leader Emily Comer told Blanc, ...

The DSA's dishonest and self-serving account of the US ...

www.wsws.org › articles › 2019/08/08 › reds-a08
Aug 8, 2019 — A new book by Democratic Socialists of America member Eric Blanc reviewing the role of the DSA during the teacher strikes in West Virginia, ...

Red State Revolt: The Teachers' Strike Wave and Working ...

www.amazon.com › Red-State-Revolt-Teachers-Politics
55 Strong: Inside the West Virginia Teachers' Strike by Elizabeth Catte Paperback $19.18 ... “Eric Blanc's compelling new book, Red State Revolt, is a thoroughly ...

Monday, February 18, 2019

West Virginia Teachers to Strike Over Charter Push

While the bill did include the promised pay raise that resulted from last year's strike, it also included the introduction of charter schools to the state as well as the creation of education savings accounts that parents could tap into for homeschooling or private school tuition.... CNN
Last year's strike was victorious - all schools were closed down by the Superintendents and teachers didn't lose any pay. Since WV doesn't have any charters, there were no alternatives. My immediate thoughts were that there would be retribution to prevent this situation from happening again. And so it has come to pass with a law establishing charters and I heard rumors that teachers may lose pay even if schools are closed down. (Not sure of this one but we will see what happens after the strike - and also how far reaching it will be - it looks like this is led by the state AFT - let's see where grassroots leadership goes.

Ravitch reports:

West Virginia: Teachers Will Walk Out Again Because of Broken Promises

by dianeravitch
A year ago, teachers in every school in all 55 counties in West Virginia closed down the schools when they walked out to protest low pay, high healthcare costs, and the looming threat of school choice.
They were promised a 5% salary increase, a commission to figure out how to low healthcare costs, and a veto by the governor if the legislature tried to pass school choice, which would drain even more money away from the state's ill-funded schools.
The legislators lied. They are in the midst of passing legislation to pull the rug out from under the teachers, the kids, and the public schools. The legislature wants charters and vouchers, even thought the governor promised to veto such a bill.
The teachers are going out again.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

West Virginia, Oklahoma Strike Lessons – Right to Work does not have to be a Death Sentence

I wrote this up for the March edition of Another View in the UFT which we were going to hand out at today's postponed Delegate Assembly and will hand out next week. I had to squeeze this on so I didn't say a whole bunch of stuff I wanted to touch on. One of my thoughts was that the strike in WV, possible upcoming ones in Oklahoma and elsewhere
strikes fear into union leaderships like Weingarten and Mulgrew because they will never have the stomach for a strike and if there is a day when the rank and file revolt (as we did in 1975 when Shanker opposed striking) they wouldn't be able to control things -- though Shanker managed to manipulate things to end the strike.

If you want to know more about both states watch this must see video: Video feed of the March 10 event at the Jacobin FB page: https://www.facebook.com/jacobinmag/videos/2087299477963409/


West Virginia, Oklahoma Strike Lessons –
Right to Work does not have to be a Death Sentence
By Norm Scott, MORE, Education Notes blog

On the Saturday evening of March 10, 2018, about 300 people showed up at the meeting hall of the NY State Nurses Association (NYSNA) on West 33rd St to hear a presentation by three West Virginia teachers who played key roles in the recent victorious strike. Starting with the idea of a sickout, termed “the blue flu”, in a few counties, the movement turned into a full-fledged wildcat strike in every single county in the state that led to the closing of every school in the state. A right to work state. A state where strikes by public employees are illegal.

Yet, despite all, they struck. And won. Not only did they win the 5% raise they asked for plus an agreement to control rising health care costs, but attempts by the state legislature to impose charter schools was also turned back. The state is one of the few without any charter schools. After the presentation, one of the teachers leading a similar movement in Oklahoma called in and told their story, which includes enormous resistance of the state union leadership which is being dragged kicking and screaming by the rank and file towards taking actions they clearly are not comfortable with.

With the Janus decision on the horizon, the stories coming out of West Virginia and Oklahoma have been remarkable, especially since both states are the heart of what is considered heavy Trump territory and most probably many of the teachers themselves are Trump supporters or centrist Democrats. While local activists here often assume that the most militant voices come from the left, these stories prove that militancy can come from any segment of the labor movement when conditions reach a breaking point.

Even more impressive has been that the actions in both states seem to be led by actual classroom teachers, as state and county union leaders (and maybe national too) urge greater caution.

An immediate thought was that the actions coming out of these states, and maybe more to come, is the threat they represent to the top teacher union leaders who won’t even whisper the “S” word. How often have we been warned about the Taylor Law over the past 40 years since our last strike in 1975? No matter how difficult it may be to face the truth, the greatest gains we have made often came out of strikes or the threat to strike. With the people running the city assured that we will never strike, de Blasio can refuse parental leave or any other improvement of working conditions without demanding give backs. It will be certainly interesting to watch how Mulgrew and other union officials dance around these stories as they offer cheerleading support for them while also trying to tamp down similar moves that might come from the UFT membership. I have been posting stories about the strike at: ednotesonline.com.

Video feed of the March 10 event at the Jacobin FB page: https://www.facebook.com/jacobinmag/videos/2087299477963409/

Thursday, March 15, 2018

How the spark became a flame in W. Virginia | Socialist Worker

A good blow by blow account:
We're hoping this is just the beginning of a much larger movement and that people wake up...
----
Let's talk about step two, which we called that "blue flu" [everyone calling in sick and staying home]. We said what does everyone think about a "blue flu" day? Everybody was in support.
Our union reps were there, and I think they were surprised. They said: Let me tell you about all the legal repercussions, you may lose your seniority, you might lose your job, you're definitely going to lose a day of pay. But everyone was still on board.
The momentum and energy in the room was intense.-----
other counties were saying we weren't giving them enough time, that they needed more time to organize. We talked about that in our leadership meetings: Do we stop? Do we wait on other counties to get organized, or do we just go ahead and do it?
We decided, no, let's just go ahead and do it. The day before I went, someone looked at me and said are you really going to go to the Capitol with four counties? They will laugh you out. You need at least 45 to make a difference. I said I don't believe that. I think that it wouldn't matter if it was one county. It's going to start a movement.
You just wait and see if other counties don't start jumping on board and following our lead. And sure enough, it happened. It was like a domino effect.....
.......WV Teacher Katie Endicott, Socialist Worker
Yes, the union leadership warned them of consequences. They weren't scared off. It depends on how you look at it. Here we see the union leadership as damping militancy. In this account Katie says they were doing their job to warn them but then also telling them they'd have their backs.

How the spark became a flame in W. Virginia 

Teachers were celebrating at the West Virginia Capitol last week, after their nine-day, statewide strike won the passage of legislation that gives them and other state employees a 5 percent raise. Some 20,000 educators in a "right-to-work" state walked out February 22 over wages and the underfunding of the Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA), which provides health care coverage for state workers.
The day after the strike ended, 10th and 12th grade English teacher Katie Endicott from Central Mingo High School spoke with Dana Blanchard about how this struggle came together.
Teachers stand united during a nine-day strike in West VirginiaTeachers stand united during a nine-day strike in West Virginia
 
I WOULD love to hear a little bit more about the Mingo story. I know you've probably told this a thousand times in the past weeks, but you all kind of started this whole thing.
ON MARTIN Luther King Jr. Day, there was a rally. That's a holiday that West Virginia schools have off, and teachers went to the rally in Charleston.
My little boy had the flu, so I stayed with the kids while my husband went to the rally.
When he came home, he was so dejected because he said there were only about 150 teachers there. And when he talked to state senators and delegates, they were telling him: You should be scared, you have no idea what is coming your way.
https://socialistworker.org/2018/03/12/how-the-spark-became-a-flame-in-w-virginia 

How the West Virginia Teacher Strike Was Made | Rewire News

What bothered Null the most, she said, was when legislators made clear they “have money for businesses but not for you.” The money for businesses in question is a $140 million tax break on mining and manufacturing business inventory, money that would ordinarily mostly go to fund schools. Null believes that this tax break largely benefits corporate interests outside of the state.

So at the suggestion of Cheatham, a group of teachers went to the state capitol to talk about their concerns. Null said, “Most of [the lawmakers] gave nice political answers, but there were a handful of Republican senators who decided to use sarcasm.” These responses served to galvanize the teachers and they set to organizing.... Rewire News
Here's another article on the WV strike. The UFT has another  lobbying day coming up. Ho-hum, I guess. Here is what the teachers in WV put on the table but our UFT/NYSUT leaders won't -- hard economics.
What bothered Null the most, she said, was when legislators made clear they “have money for businesses but not for you.” The money for businesses in question is a $140 million tax break on mining and manufacturing business inventory, money that would ordinarily mostly go to fund schools. Null believes that this tax break largely benefits corporate interests outside of the state.
I'm posting all these articles so we can have as much info as possible from all sides - including from the right - so we can learn what lessons we can. For those who dream of it happening here, it will never happen as long as the current leadership can control the membership. Now if that gets to a point where the membership is angry enough to rise up, even with the current leadership in power, they would be forced to become more militant but I still wouldn't trust them. Watch the WV and OK stories to see how the leadership is operating. More to come.

How the West Virginia Teacher Strike Was Made

 
Powerful social movements throughout history have been led by women and children, and the statewide strike in West Virginia, along with the movement ignited by students from Parkland, might be the sign of major changes ahead. 

While the pussy hat became the best-known symbol of the Women’s March in 2017, the West Virginia education strikers of 2018 had their own head gear: red bandanas and occasional bunny ears. The bandanas were a nod to labor history in West Virginia—striking miners at the Battle of Blair Mountain tied the bandanas around their necks to symbolize solidarity that spanned differences in ethnicities and languages, making them the original rednecks. But it was also a defiant gesture to Gov. Jim Justice (R), who told a crowd at a town hall at Wheeling Park High School that he could be “the town redneck, too.”

The bunny ears came after Governor Justice declared the teachers were “dumb bunnies” if they trusted other politicians rather than him.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

The West Virginia Teachers Strike Shows That Winning Big Requires Creating a Crisis | The Nation

“Wages and health benefits were almost a distraction. They are important, but there were five major stances we took, and we won all five.”
These included defeating an expansion of charter schools, killing a proposal to eliminate seniority, and scuttling a paycheck-protection bill (aimed at weakening unions by taking away their right to deduct union dues through payroll collection), as well as a mechanism to fix the health-insurance crisis and a raise big enough to matter. ... The Nation
Here's my third piece of the day on the WV strike as I sit and watch the nail biter from Western PA. This time from the left- The Nation. Note the wins were more than wages -- they killed a charter school initiative. I asked one of the WV teachers at the big show last Saturday night about charter schools in WV - he said "None." I figured that was the case since how do you close every school in the state if there were charters? That is the hidden purpose of charters -- to assure teacher unions cannot get the power to close every school. Who knew WV had no real charter influence? He told me that was because they are so rural with such big distances.

I have some stuff on WV and OK from the right - my pal Mike Antonucci - some snark, as usual, but always with stuff not being covered by others --- some of that coming up Thursday night.

The strikers won all five of their demands by shutting down every public school in the state.

By Jane McAlevey


https://www.thenation.com/article/the-west-virginia-teachers-strike-shows-that-winning-big-requires-creating-a-crisis/

WV-teachers-strike-ap-img
Thousands of teachers and school personnel at the capitol in Charleston, March 5, 2018. (Craig Hudson / Charleston Gazette-Mail via AP)

Notes on the West Virginia Teachers Strike of 2018 | naked capitalism

Feeding the schoolkids was a tactical masterstroke (as doing the right thing so often is)...
“What are their demands?” — that the teachers are making, as opposed to the demands that careless journalists say they are making; and then I’ll present a grab bag of interesting characteristics worth noting, partly about West Virginia, partly about this strike. I’ll conclude with some remarks on the role of the Democrat Party in creating the conditions that led to the strike....
we enter phase three! The rank and file rejected the deal, turning the strike into a wildcat strike. ..... by Lambert Strether
If you continue reading Ed Notes you will learn everything there is to share about teacher actions in W. Virginia and Oklahoma - and hopefully other places too until you can't take anymore.

For the 2nd West Virginia strike article of the day that I'm posting, this one looks like a goodie even though it was posted over a week ago. Look at the opening line up top. Feeding the kids. I can just imagine some of the selfish oafs who comment on mine and other blogs thinking, "how social justicy" - why worry about the kids?

I still have at least one more to post later around midnight. (I want to give readers a chance to get to the articles.) Why am I focusing on WV and OK -- lessons galore -- and not only what you may be hearing from the left the center or the right. By reading everything we can come up with some conclusions - hopefully - on how we may be affected here in NYC and beyond. The answer may very well be not at all.

Note the section in red with the * - these 3 unions have not gotten along and according to a West V teacher I spoke to, there is still a lot of tension and resistance to working together from union leaders at the top --- yes, this crap never goes away.

I still have to report on the March 10 Saturday night event attended by 300 people who heard directly from 3 WV teachers.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/03/notes-west-virginia-teachers-strike-2018.html#comment-2933610

Notes on the West Virginia Teachers Strike of 2018

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.


Obviously, the West Virgina teachers strike is a big story, and potentially an enormous one, especially if it turns out to be the more successful cousin of the the Wisconsin State Capitol occupations of 2011 which followed Tahrir Square and preceded Occupy proper. (As we’ll see below, “teachers strike” is a bit of a misnomer, and that’s important, but I think we’re stuck with the phrase.) So I ought to present a general theory, or at least a hot take, but on working through the sources as best I could, I realized how little I knew of realities on the ground[1], so my ambitions for this post will be more modest. First, I’ll review the state of play; then, I’ll reinforce the demands — one of the nice things about a strike is that there is an answer to the question “What are their demands?” — that the teachers are making, as opposed to the demands that careless journalists say they are making; and then I’ll present a grab bag of interesting characteristics worth noting, partly about West Virginia, partly about this strike. I’ll conclude with some remarks on the role of the Democrat Party in creating the conditions that led to the strike.

First, one piece of background. There was a massive and successful eleven-day West Virginia teachers strike in 1990. The Charleston Gazette-Mail:
In March 1990, teachers across West Virginia refused to go to work and headed to the picket line, shutting down hundreds of schools for 11 days. They walked out after legislative leaders and Gov. Gaston Caperton were unable to come to an agreement on a package of pay raises.
The 1990 strike is often referred to as West Virginia’s first statewide teacher strike, but eight of the state’s 55 counties didn’t participate in the walkout.
Teachers returned to work after union leaders secured promises from state Senate President Keith Burdette and House Speaker Chuck Chambers to address teacher pay and other issues.
Among other results of the strike, teachers received a $5,000 pay increase, phased in over three years. That boosted West Virginia teachers’ salaries from 49th in the nation before the strike to 34th after the raises were implemented. Teachers also got new support and training programs, and money was set aside for faculty senate groups in every school, in an effort to give teachers more of a voice in education policy decisions.
Then as now, the strike was “unlawful” without being “illegal” (I’m not sure I understand that, either) but in any case nobody was arrested (even though, unbelievably, teachers have no right to collective bargaining in West Virginia, and their wages are set by the legislature). Two other differences leap out: In 2018, all 55 counties participated (the hash tag is #55strong), and this time, the rank and file rejected the “secured promises” obtained from the Governor by the union leadership.

The State Of Play
So far, the strike has gone through three phases: The build-up, the walkout, and the wildcat strike. Let’s look at each phase in turn.
Labor Notes has a good retrospective of the thinking and organizing during the build-up to the strike, sadly (or fortunately?) not made visible to the rest of the world by the press:
The first rumblings began late last year, when a group of teachers formed a secret Facebook page[2] and started planning a “lobby day” at the state capital on Martin Luther King Day, when they knew the legislature would be in session. Word spread, and soon the West Virginia Education Association, the state’s NEA affiliate, was planning an official rally.
“This was almost completely a grassroots movement,” said Erica Newsome, an English teacher in Logan County. “The unions kind of followed us.”
Organizers estimate 150 people showed up. “The rally was kind of small,” said Ashlea Bassham, a teacher at Chapmanville Regional High School, “but then it just sort of happened.”
Teachers and school service employees started holding walkout votes county by county. West Virginia has two statewide teachers unions, affiliates of the AFT and NEA, which often compete for membership. There is also the West Virginia School Service Professional Association, or WVSSPA,* which represents bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians, and clerical workers. But teachers and school service employees decided that in this case, any school employee could vote—whether they were a member of any one of the unions or no union at all.
We now enter the walkout phase, marked by Capitol protests and rallies:
Strikers converged on the capital again. This time there were 1,000 teachers, public employees, students, and parents at the statehouse.
“The gallery filled up too quick for me and some co-workers to go in,” said Bassham, “So we waited in the breezeway to talk to our state legislators. Some of our representatives were willing to talk and take a minute and listen, and some of them had their heads down, walking really quickly.”
The legislature responded by announcing a temporary freeze to Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) premium increases, and offered a two percent pay raise in the first year.
At this point (February 27), the union leadership declared victory[3]. The Payday Report:
After 4 days of striking, the West Virginia teachers’ union has reached an agreement to end their historic work stoppage.
Under the deal, the teachers would get a 5% raise during the first year. Initially, teachers had been offered 1% raise.
The state also agreed to appoint a task force to look into improving the troubled Public Employee Insurance Agency [PEIA], which insures the teachers.
The teachers will return to classes on Thursday after a brief cooling-off period.
In fact, that didn’t happen, and we enter phase three! The rank and file rejected the deal, turning the strike into a wildcat strike. Jacobin interviewed Jay O’Neal, a middle-school teacher and union activist in Charleston:
[O’NEAL]: As is the case these days, everybody was on their phones, trying to follow the news to get a sense of what was going on.
Within ten minutes, we found out through the governor’s press conference [not a good look!] that a deal had been reached. Teachers and school staff would get a 5 percent pay raise, and 3 percent for all state employees. The governor also said that a task force would be set up to figure out how to improve PEIA, our statewide health insurance plan for public sector workers.
Fifteen minutes after the press conference, union leaders came out and addressed the crowd. The basic problem was that they presented this deal as a victory. They told us we’d be out on strike one more day, then return to school on Thursday.
People were up in arms, really frustrated. Of course, a 5 percent raise is great, but what we’ve been really fighting for in this struggle is PEIA. This has been a huge issue, causing problems for years. They’ve been cutting our health insurance over and over, making it really expensive to survive.
So when it was announced that all we got on PEIA was a task force, people were upset.
And:
In my county at least, the sentiment is that
we’re not going back to work until there’s solid proof that our demands are going to be met. Our biggest fear is that they’re just going to keep pushing back the question of PEIA.
(There was also a hilarious subplot where Governor Justice pulled “$58 million out of thin air” to pay for the raises, IIRC continuing a storied tradition in the state.) And in fact, the rank and file were right on the money, as hilarity ensues in the state legislature. The Charleston Gazette and Mail:
On Saturday evening, the Senate Finance Committee took up a pay raise bill passed by the House, and reduced the pay increase for teachers, school service workers and State Police troopers from 5 percent to 4 percent.
But the Senate then, mistakenly, passed the House version of the bill with the 5 percent raise, rather than the 4 percent version. After Senate leaders announced the mistake, senators walked back their passage vote and certain procedural votes, and passed the bill with a 4 percent raise after 9:30 p.m. Saturday.
House members wouldn’t agree to that change, and both sides appointed three members to a conference committee, which will try to hash out the differences on the bill.
“At this point, the three organizations announce that we are out indefinitely — we will not accept the 4 percent,” said Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association, speaking on behalf of his group, as well as the state arm of the American Federation of Teachers and the West Virginia School Service and Personnel Association, following Saturday’s committee vote. “Until this bill passes at 5 percent, we will be out indefinitely.”
Immediately after the committee amendment vote (the first time around), jeering broke out from the Senate gallery.
(Whether the Senate leadership was incompetent, or engaged in crude delaying tactics I cannot say.) The Conference Committee might meet Sunday, but the Senate reconvenes Monday at 11AM. So that is where we are.

What Are Their Demands?
All I’m going to do here is contrast the lazier headlines with what the striking teachers are saying. The headlines:
But as we have already seen, health insurance (PEIA) was a key issue[4], besides the raise; that’s what teacher Jay O’Neal says above, that’s what teacher Katie Endicott told the New York Times, that’s what teacher Samantha Nelson told CNN, and that’s what the Charleston Gazette and Mail found in its reporting:
Many school employees interviewed say maintaining Public Employees Insurance Agency health insurance costs and benefits at their current levels is a bigger issue than pay increases. PEIA Finance Board members, at the governor’s urging, have delayed premium increases and benefit cuts, but teachers say that just delays the pain, and a long-term solution is needed.
That’s also what the Los Angeles Times found:
At the heart of the matter, teachers say, isn’t their salaries. It’s their soaring healthcare costs.
“We’ve seen [people say] ‘teachers are not happy with the 5% increase’ — that’s not it at all,” said Mary Clark, 49, a fifth-grade teacher in Monongalia County. “That’s not what kept us out. It’s the insurance. That’s the big deal.”
In West Virginia, teachers and other state employees receive health coverage through the Public Employees Insurance Agency.
The state program is funded 80% by employers and 20% by employees. That means as healthcare costs continue to rise significantly, the program’s long-term solvency requires “significant revenue increases in employer and employee premiums” over the next five years, according to an October 2017 financial report prepared for PEIA.
In other words, employees are going to need to pay up. “They are wanting to raise our rates,” Clark said.
But there’s a problem with that: After teaching for a little more than 10 years, “I’ve not seen [my take-home pay] go up any at all,” not even counting inflation, Clark said. If her healthcare costs increase, “that’s not feasible.”
Which is obvious when you think about it: What’s the point of a raise if your insurance company takes the money right out of your pocket, like you’re some sort of pass-through?

Bottom line here is to beware of any source that presents the raise (4% vs 5%) as the only, or even the main issue. That includes, as we have seen, much of the press, but also the Governor and the legislature, and the union leadership (at least as far as I can find). PEIA needs to be fixed, and not by some pissant kick-the-can-down-the-road [family blogging] commission, either.

West Virginia on the Ground
Now the promised grab bag: Items I noticed collecting information for this story that seem to be unique to West Virginia. The first two relate to the history and culture of the state; the final three are about this strike in particular.

Item one: The word “county.” Teacher O’Neal uses it in his interview above:
From below,
I can only really speak about the situation in my county, which is local to Charleston. We decided to have a meeting at 1 PM to try to straighten things out and to get some correct information. It was all super last minute, we had to plan it in a couple of hours. We met in a nearby church. The room was absolutely packed, with pews and aisles filled way past capacity.
And I ran across teachers talking about their counties constantly. Now, I don’t know what to make of this. I am very much from my place or patch in Maine, but I situate myself more in my town, or at the intersection of the Penobscot and the Stillwater Rivers; I don’t think myself as being from Penobscot County at all. Perhaps some West Virginia readers can enlighten us?

Item two: West Virgina has a storied labor history. State Senator Richard Ojeda, a Democrat, amazingly enough, in the Morgan County, USA blog:
“The teachers of West Virginia are not just fighting for themselves, our children or all public employees,” Ojeda wrote. “In my view, teachers in West Virginia are joining a fight for the soul and spirit of West Virginia that started hundreds of years ago.”
“Hundreds of years ago, investors came to West Virginia and purchased most of the land for all but nothing. Even today, you will be hard pressed to find many people in West Virginia who own their mineral rights.”
“They wanted our salt, timber and coal. They came in, paid our people essentially nothing for it and then put in the railroad. West Virginia has always been a colony.”
I’ll stop there, but it’s worth a read in full. (It’s is a rolled up Tweet storm from Ojeda, but I wanted to give a local site some hits.)

Item three, now on the strike itself: Feeding the schoolkids was a tactical masterstroke (as doing the right thing so often is). From Today:
During the four-day strike, teachers throughout West Virginia went out of their way to provide students with food. Teachers and staff at Horace Mann Middle School in Charleston prepared bagged lunches to send home with their students before they hit the picket line. Others worked with local food pantries to drop food off at students’ homes.
Item four: All school unions are involved, not just the teachers, unlike the 1990 strike[6] (making the phrase “teachers strike” a misnomer). The Charleston Gazette Mail:
Teachers, this time joined by school service personnel, walked off the job Thursday…. The 1990 strike also did not involve public school service personnel, a category that generally includes non-teachers, like bus drivers and cooks.
This is a second tactical masterstroke (besides, again, being the right thing to do). Awkward situations described in this photo caption are avoided:
Protesters block school buses from leaving a garage during the West Virginia teachers’ strike on March 9, 1990.
This time, the bus drivers walked out with the teachers (which certainly does make it easier to enforce the school closures).

Item five: The teachers (and cooks and bus drivers and janitors and all school employers) are, as Ojeda points out, fighting for all West Virginia public employees, not just themselves, since PEIA stands for “ Public Employee Insurance Agency.” A third tactical masterstroke (and again, the right thing to do).

Actually, having written the items, I now see a common thread between them, or at least for two through five: Solidarity.

Conclusion
“West Virginia Spring” may be over-stating the case[5], but the teachers strike — need a better phrase! — is already an interesting and potentially important flashpoint (especially if the teachers in Oklahoma follow their lead, or even Florida, if Florida teachers decide they don’t want to be security guards on top of everything else). Before I close, I did promise I’d have a word to say about the role of the Democrat Party in all this.

First, Governor Justice is a piece of work. Vice:
The towering Justice, who owns coal companies, resorts, and a host of other businesses, has emerged as the bete noire of the saga. He won his office running a Trump-like campaign as an outsider businessman, but
flipped from Democrat to Republican at a Trump rally in Huntington last summer. As West Virginia’s only billionaire, Justice has developed a reputation for not paying taxes or federal fines—a fact frequently touted on signs and in conversations among the teachers striking for better pay.
Governor Justice, in other words, besides being self-funded, is a Blue Dog with the courage of his (Republican) convictions (rare, I know). He is, that is, exactly the sort of candidate that the DCCC is trying to foist on us to make sure, among other things, that #MedicareForAll “never, ever comes to pass.”

Second, West Virginia troubles with PEIA are due to tax policies suppported by both parties, very much including a second Blue Dog, Joe Manchin. HuffPo:
A decade ago, West Virginia began gradually winding down certain business taxes that could have helped pay for the across-the-board raises that teachers haven’t seen in four years. They also could have helped fill the funding shortfall in the Public Employee Insurance Agency, or PEIA, which many workers list as their top concern.
Although Republicans now control both chambers of the statehouse, the tax cuts that Over the following years, the state wound down its corporate net income tax rate from 9 to 6.5 percent, and phased out its business franchise tax. It also slashed its tax on groceries from six to three percent, and later did away with it entirely under Manchin’s successor, Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin. Over the same span, the state also created a family tax credit, increased its homestead exemption and got rid of an alternative minimum tax and corporate charter tax, according to the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy.
All told, those cuts diminished state revenue by more than $425 million each year, the center estimates.squeezed the state budget were a bipartisan undertaking. Then-Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who’s now one of the state’s two senators in Washington, had urged legislators to pursue the tax cuts in 2006, arguing that West Virginia needed to slash taxes on corporations in order to be competitive with other states.
(Of course, the best way to fix PEIA would be to remove health insurance from its remit entirely by passing #MedicareForAll. Manchin, naturally, does not support that.)
I’ll close with The New Yorker’s perspective:
“Appalachia was not different from the rest of America,” the Appalachian historian Ronald Eller wrote ten years ago, in his history of the region, “Uneven Ground.” “It was in fact a mirror of what the nation was becoming.” Maybe that is the real source of the suspense, in the conflict between educators wearing red and the Trump-supporting governor: it isn’t at all obvious whether these teachers are professionals in a middle-class place or workers whose footsteps get tracked by an app[7], because it isn’t at all obvious what the nation is becoming.
Well….
NOTES
[1] Whinging a bit: Google News gets worse and worse, so it’s hard to find stuff; newsrooms are being slashed, which means there’s less to find; the labor beat, at least in the newsroom, is a thing of the past; and social media nuked a lot of the small blogs (and Facebook search is miserably inadequate, even if it weren’t so toxic I can’t bring myself to use it anymore). All of which is by way of asking readers, especially West Virginia readers, for local sources I should be looking at. Surely there are some small West Virginia political blogs worth reading?
[2] Not, of course, “secret” to Facebook. Gawd knows who Facebook was selling that data to.
[3] See this clickbait tear-jerker from CNN: “This 6th-grader helped end West Virginia teachers’ strike.” Always “this.” Never “these.”
[4] Stoller comments:
[5] Although it’s worth noting that the Quebec printemps érable — a really horrible pun, think about it — student strike was also in the education sector.
[6] “Higher” education should take this to heart, I think.
[7] This is a reference not only to Amazon warehouse workers, but to West Virginia teachers. Katie Endicott: “They implemented Go365, which is an app that I’m supposed to download on my phone, to track my steps, to earn points through this app. If I don’t earn enough points, and if I choose not to use the app, then I’m penalized $500 at the end of the year.”

Labor Notes on West Virginia Teacher Strike

“This was almost completely a grassroots movement,” said Erica Newsome, an English teacher in Logan County. “The unions kind of followed us.” Organizers estimate 150 people showed up. “The rally was kind of small,” said Ashlea Bassham, a teacher at Chapmanville Regional High School, “but then it just sort of happened.”... Labor Notes

You never can tell when a spark will ignite a fire. West Virginia and Oklahoma happened outside the teacher union leadership outside the school level but there was some leadership at the school rank and file level. This article is from Feb. 22 but worth reading for background -- though I always run articles coming from any ideological source (as Labor Notes is) through my filter to see is there is a dog in the race. This is a straightforward piece chronicling what happened. It doesn't get into the the battle between the NEA and AFT inside West Virginia, nor the fact there is a 3rd statewide union involved that split from the AFT. I'm going to dig up more stories on WV and OK today and also write up my own blog on what I learned from attending the Labor Notes - plus others, including MORE - sponsored event last Saturday night which was attended by 300 people.

West Virginia Teachers Launch Statewide Strike

February 22, 2018 / Jonah Furman and Dan DiMaggio

http://www.labornotes.org/2018/02/west-virginia-teachers-launch-statewide-strike

Teachers and school service employees in West Virginia have launched a two-day statewide strike, riding a wave of indignation that has washed over the state. Photo: Cassie Allara
Teachers and school service employees in West Virginia have launched a two-day statewide strike, riding a wave of indignation that has washed over the state.

They’re protesting health insurance changes that would result in pay cuts for many state employees. Governor Jim Justice’s initial proposal would have provided raises of just 1 percent a year for the next five years—while health insurance costs would rise significantly.

Pay for West Virginia’s teachers ranks 48th in the country, and the state is constantly losing teachers to its neighbors, where they can earn much higher salaries.

The first rumblings began late last year, when a group of teachers formed a secret Facebook page and started planning a “lobby day” at the state capital on Martin Luther King Day, when they knew the legislature would be in session. Word spread, and soon the West Virginia Education Association, the state’s NEA affiliate, was planning an official rally.

“This was almost completely a grassroots movement,” said Erica Newsome, an English teacher in Logan County. “The unions kind of followed us.”

Organizers estimate 150 people showed up. “The rally was kind of small,” said Ashlea Bassham, a teacher at Chapmanville Regional High School, “but then it just sort of happened.”

PACKED STATEHOUSE

Teachers and school service employees started holding walkout votes county by county. West Virginia has two statewide teachers unions, affiliates of the AFT and NEA, which often compete for membership. There is also the West Virginia School Service Professional Association, or WVSSPA, which represents bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians, and clerical workers. But teachers and school service employees decided that in this case, any school employee could vote—whether they were a member of any one of the unions or no union at all.
At Bassham’s school, the walkout vote was conducted by paper ballot, all in one day, and the response was resounding: 49 yes, 9 no. So on February 2, Chapmanville Regional High walked out—along with the rest of Logan, Mingo, and Wyoming Counties. Other counties organized “walk-ins” before school.
Strikers converged on the capital again. This time there were 1,000 teachers, public employees, students, and parents at the statehouse. Wyoming County teachers had so much support that they rented county school buses to make the 90-mile trip.

“The gallery filled up too quick for me and some co-workers to go in,” said Bassham, “So we waited in the breezeway to talk to our state legislators. Some of our representatives were willing to talk and take a minute and listen, and some of them had their heads down, walking really quickly.”

The legislature responded by announcing a temporary freeze to Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) premium increases, and offered a two percent pay raise in the first year. But that wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy West Virginia teachers, who want a more permanent fix to the PEIA and the state’s low salaries.
There is no collective bargaining for public employees in West Virginia. Salaries are set by the state legislature, though some counties supplement them through local levies.

OUTRAGEOUS CUTS

“When I first started teaching, I understood that our salaries weren’t going to be great, but that it was good benefits,” said third-grade teacher Wendy Peters, the president of her union local in Raleigh County. “Our insurance was kind of like the gold standard for health insurance.”
But for years the PEIA has been struggling and underfunded. Late last year, the governor and the PEIA board proposed several changes that would undermine health benefits, which incensed public employees.
Teachers and school employees would see instant increases in their prescription costs and in premiums—which would be recalculated based on their total family income, instead of a flat rate based on a single employee’s salary.
An initial proposal would also have hit retirees with a two-point premium increase, but after an outcry this was walked back. Still, the chronically underfunded PEIA is forecasting even harsher changes in the near future.
One particularly contentious proposal, which has since been withdrawn, was a wellness-incentive program called “Go365.” Teachers and other public employees would have to earn “points” by, for example, sending the state photographic evidence of their healthy behavior and tracking their steps.
If they failed to meet certain benchmarks, their monthly premiums would increase by $25 a month. Those who opted out would have $500 added to their deductibles.

IN SEARCH OF JUSTICE

By February the secret Facebook group, West Virginia Public Employees United, had over 20,000 members. Inspired by the first three counties, more local unions began holding their own walkout votes, alongside a surge of grassroots actions.

Governor Justice, who got the WVEA’s endorsement when he ran as a Democrat in 2016—but has since switched back to the GOP—has drawn particular ire.
“You feel like, ‘Gosh, we helped you get elected, and you were talking about how education needed to be the centerpiece of our state, and you’ve since switched platforms,’” said Peters. “You feel betrayed.”
While in office the governor has continued to coach a girls’ high school basketball team; the games now draw regular protests from teachers.

MOMENTUM BUILDS

In the first week of February, AFT-WV and WVEA leaders asked the locals for each of the state’s 55 counties to ballot employees on whether to authorize a statewide walkout before the March 10 end of the legislative session.

An overwhelming majority of counties voted in favor.

While state union leaders discussed whether to call a statewide action, the rolling walkouts continued. Mason and Cabell Counties voted to go out Friday, February 16. The next day, three more counties signed on, and a sixth had joined in by the time teachers and school employees arrived at the capital Friday morning.
February 17, a Saturday, saw the biggest action yet. An estimated 10,000 teachers, service employees, and allies gathered outside the statehouse. Leaders from the United Mine Workers and the Teamsters spoke.

When the leaders of the two statewide teacher unions took the microphone to declare that negotiations were “getting nowhere” and announce a shutdown of “the entire state,” the crowd erupted.
The walkout was on.

PROUD 'REDNECKS'

West Virginia has a long history of militant union fights, especially in the coal mining regions in the south of the state—including the three counties where this year’s walkouts kicked off. Many teachers at the statehouse have been wearing red bandanas, a tradition that originated in coal miners’ union battles of the 1920s, one place where the term “redneck” originated.

“Unions are what we’re raised on,” said Bassham. “The Battle of Blair Mountain [a 1921 confrontation between 10,000 armed coal miners and 3,000 lawmen and strikebreakers, and eventually the U.S. Army] was 15 minutes from my house.”

Parents have held informational pickets before and after school, and even some school boards and superintendents have issued statements of support.
When Logan County walked out, at first the district sent out text messages and robocalls to parents and teachers, stating that school would be closed “due to an illegal, unauthorized employee walkout/work stoppage.”

But a week later the board came around and passed a resolution declaring that it “supports our employees in their efforts to receive higher wages and medical benefits commensurate with their commitment to our children.”
To maintain public support, teachers and school employees have organized food drives ahead of the two-day walkout, to make sure students who rely on the school for lunch won’t go hungry.
Striking is illegal for public sector employees in West Virginia, but there doesn’t appear to be much fear on the ground, thanks in part to the 700 teaching vacancies in the state.
“There’s a sense of, What are they going to do, fire us all?” said Jay O’Neal, treasurer for the Kanawha County local. "Who would they get to replace us?"
Dan DiMaggio is Assistant Editor of Labor Notes. Jonah Furman is a labor activist in New York City. Hear directly from West Virginia teachers at the Labor Notes Conference, April 6-8 in Chicago. Register today!
A version of this article appeared in Labor Notes #468. Don't miss an issue, subscribe today.

Thursday, March 8, 2018

West Virginia: Do-It-Yourself Class Struggle - Jacobin

One lesson from the West Virginia teachers’ strike is clear: nobody is coming to save us. We’ll have to do it ourselves.... 
....many workers in Wisconsin have argued that it was the intervention of union officials into the militant upsurge of 2011 that demobilized the occupation of the capitol building and redirected workers’ energies into an unsuccessful electoral bid to oust Governor Scott Walker. The calls for a general strike that echoed through the rotunda represent the road not taken: had workers relied on their own power rather than deferring to elected officials and union leaders, things may have turned out differently...... Kevin Prosen, Jacobin
I bet the people most frightened by the strike are our very union leaders who are probably hoping for swift retribution (which is already beginning - see Ravitch) so they can say to UFT members -- see what happens when you get too militant? We will examine the role Randi and Lily and their reps played in WV - remember the union leaders said they had a settlement and the rank and file revolted. We will delve more into that issue in upcoming posts.

But the strike has been making the mainstream press -- though mainly ignored by the so-called liberal MSNBC and CNN.

See Ed Week
Will Teachers' Strikes Happen More Often?
Union supporters have claimed that strikes and labor unrest could happen more frequently if the Supreme Court rules against mandatory union fees. But experts aren't so sure. Read more.


We will delve into the impact of the WV strike -in upcoming posts --  will it increase militancy or not? Like I pointed out above - retribution of some kind is going to come and how that is dealt with is the key. I think they are going to try to fragment the public school system with a heavy choice movement -- kill public education and no state wide strikes.

Kevin Prosen, a MORE member (and cheesehead from Wisconsin) connects a few dots in this post of a few weeks ago.

There's a lot to chew on in Kevin's piece. I don't always agree with his analysis but do agree with most. But I need to spend more time educating myself and will be posting more commentary on WV. It is definitely worth a read and feel free to comment. Here are a  excerpts (in red), some in bold by me with comments by me (in black) but read it entirely at https://jacobinmag.com/2018/03/west-virginia-janus-right-to-work-unions.
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court began hearing oral argument in Janus v. AFSCME, a lawsuit that seeks to gut public sector unions by denying them so called “agency fees,” or mandatory dues contributions from workers. One component of the deliberations was the question of “labor peace” — the state’s interest in stable, predictable labor-management arbitration. Justice Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and others questioned whether undoing agency fees would open the door to a more tumultuous and unpredictable labor-relations regime. The argument on the union side was an interesting one — in the words of Illinois’s solicitor general Lisa Madigan, “[w]hen unions are deprived of agency fees, they tend to become more militant, more confrontational, they go out in search of short-term gains that they can bring back to their members and say, ‘stick with us.’”
This is an important point often made by union critic Mike Antonucci - labor peace - and the role unions play as partners - often to the detriment of union members - as we've seen in NYC where the UFT often plays an arbiter rather than our advocate -- but that is a reason unions are essential to management. The point made by Kagan and Sotomayor is illustrated in West Virginia where the unions seemed to lose control for a time. Our union leadership's role is to place a brake on wildcat strikes. It didn't work in WV.
As though to prove the point, 200 miles away, across the border in West Virginia, the state’s teachers had voted to extend an ongoing illegal strike against a Republican legislature that had threatened to drastically increase the insurance premiums for workers whose pay already ranks among the lowest in the country. West Virginia is a “right to work” state, meaning workers are denied the right to collectively bargain or the stability of the “closed shop,” in which workers automatically contribute dues to the union whether they sign up or not. Such automatic collection prevents workers from “free riding” — that is, benefiting from union activity without contributing equally to the organization’s finances — while also providing a reliable stream of income to fund the activities of the union apparatus.
So what we've noticed in all the hysteria over Janus is that it ain't over for unions even in right to work states -- but the thing we have warned those wanting to leave the UFT is that the long-term effects in RTW states are much lower salaries for teachers -- and WV is 48th out of 50 states in the race to the bottom.

Kevin goes on to talk about Wisconsin -- and the lesson for many was the fact that the Democratic Party - Obama, Hillary -- abandoned them. And also the blowback from the neighbors of teachers who seemed happy at what happened to them -- read

Janesville: An American Story: Amy Goldstein.


The lesson: Make sure your non-teaching neighbors have your back -- do a lot of work out of your classroom -- yes, my friends -- sort of social justicy -- if you lock yourselves in your  classroom and then go home -- well, the long-term is not good.

Kevin goes on to talk about the unique role teachers play all over the world in fact -- they are often the first targets - Chile, Turkey, etc -- because as a mass they have contact with almost every family in a nation and have the ability - if organized - to have as much influence as any group.
Teachers are poised to lead such social movements by virtue of their work as caregivers in schools, which ties them intimately to wider layers of the working class. As public employees, their demands are inherently political insofar as they must be addressed to the state. For this reason they have been repeatedly thrust to the frontlines of movements against austerity — Wisconsin in 2011, Chicago in 2013, and now in West Virginia. The right wing understands this — indeed it is part of their argument that such organizations “mandate” their members’ “political speech,” a key contention of anti-union lawsuits like Janus. By kneecapping teachers’ unions, they strike a blow against one of the last remaining bastions of working-class economic power.
What the West Virginia movement shows — with teachers packing lunches for their students so they wouldn’t go hungry while they walked the picket line; with picket signs blazoned with images of Harriet Tubman, John Brown, and Martin Luther King, Jr — is that American workers bear no resemblance to their one-dimensional, Hillbilly Elegy-type portrayals. Workers have no stake in such a debate, based as it is on a flat, stereotyped image of working-class life. These discussions imagine us as passive dupes to be pandered to, rather than as agents of our own destiny, capable of struggling in our own self-interest. West Virginia is a bracing challenge to this narrative.
 Let's remember that W. Virginia went overwhelmingly for Trump - as big a win as anywhere. Did many striking teachers vote for Trump? I bet a good chunk did. When we hear the voices of some of the strikers in commentary from the left like Jacobin are we only hearing voices from left wing activists in WV or are we also hearing from Trump supporters who struck?

We will explore more of this in future posts --
Kevin goes on to differentiate the Wisconsin and W.V struggles and places the point of the spear at our union leadership:
What explains the different trajectories of the two struggles? Many workers in West Virginia point to the state’s history of explosive strikes, and indeed these traditions, passed down through families, constitute one key factor. But Wisconsin also has a history of militant labor struggle. Ironically, it may be the very weakness of labor unions in the greater South that left the field open for workers’ own activity; unlike the stable institutional labor relations that prevailed in Midwestern states, the union apparatus in West Virginia was largely hollowed out. While workers didn’t have the benefit of an active union involved in their day-to-day working lives, they also didn’t have ingrained habits of deference to union officials. As Jay O’Neal, a strike activist at Stonewall Jackson Middle School in Charleston, described to me: “Because there’s been such a surge of activism so quickly and many new, organic leaders have emerged, I think a lot of them don’t really have any relationship with the union leadership. I was in a meeting today and the head of one our state’s teachers’ unions came in and I heard someone next to me ask, ‘Who’s that?’ Leaders have emerged from below and are really doing the work.”
We'll be hearing a lot from Jay O'Neal from the left/socialist press. Jay seems connected to the activists and we will see that they probably had an impact in organizing since that is what many have experience doing.
Workers need strong unions, but they also need to organize independently in the workplace and learn to rely on their own power. Building durable rank-and-file networks and union caucuses is a crucial next step in revitalizing American labor.
I like this point. I see the work some of us in MORE-Carisma doing around the closing schools issue is along this lines, often with the UFT when it fights - but without them when they don't. And if they see us doing that work and getting results, they try to coopt.
when leaders returned to the picket line to announce a 5 percent wage increase but without a permanent fix to the public employees’ insurance system, it seemed enough for them to declare victory and send the teachers back to work. But workers understood that spiraling health care costs were the heart of the matter and that the wage hike wouldn’t be enough to cover them, so they kept the strike going. We know our interests better than our representatives do, and need to understand that the union officials work for us, not the other way around. In the words of one striker, a strike is not simply to earn more benefits from the state, but to force the state to negotiate with labor on labor’s terms.
Another great point below. And this one echos what I said above about making sure non-teachers have your backs - which we have often seen inside the UFT:
.... teachers cannot merely fight for their own, narrow interests. To earn the kind of public support necessary for such a large-scale struggle, they have to fight to improve the conditions of the working class as a whole. It is too easy to isolate workers who define their interests narrowly.
 Kevin ends with comments about the role in all this on the part of the American left:
lessons for America’s burgeoning young left as well. Long isolated from the working class, socialists now have the greatest opportunity in a generation to close this historic rift. With the stabilizing institutions of the union movement being dismantled, we are likely headed for a period of renewed volatility in the labor movement; in fact, one has arguably already begun. A socialist movement previously confined to student milieus or eccentric corners of the internet can no longer be satisfied with passively studying labor history or showing up to support strikes organized by others. There is a world of difference between being merely interested in the labor movement and being implanted in it.
Kevin is correct about the separation of the left from workers. But then again so much of the left does not come from the working class itself like it did in the 20's and 30s.

From what I've seen in MORE where I mingle a lot with the socialist left, there is a long way to go to close the historic rift. Some people have told me that they don't know anyone not on the left. Check the backgrounds of most people on the left in the UFT. It is not working class. (Just for the record, both my parents were ILGWU garment workers with barely an education.)

At a recent MORE meeting I heard how much people wanted to reach out to those in the UFT who are left-leaning and inside the bubble. The idea of even talking to a Trump voter seemed to make people shudder -- they ought to come to our Passover seder in a few weeks where we expect matzo food fights.

That is why I wonder about the WV striking teachers who voted for Trump. Is the left talking to them too or only leftists?

When we see the leftist press actually talking to those people and connecting to them there is a chance the rift will be breached.

Here is where I agree with Kevin wholeheartedly:
In the post-Janus world, the Left will have to seize the initiative rather than ceding the field to liberal labor leaders. We will have to learn the key lesson of West Virginia: nobody is coming to save us, and great leaps in organization and consciousness don’t appear like acts of nature. We have to create them ourselves.
There are so many interesting lessons to the story, the next few days will be heavy on WV. So if you are not interested take a vacation from ed notes.

Jacobin events

Solidarity with West Virginia Strikers!
Saturday, March 106:30-9pmMore information
We've been riveted to the labor insurgency in West Virginia, a glimpse at what workers can achieve when organized and united in solidarity.

Join us for a discussion featuring West Virginia striking teachers, Emily Comer and Jay O’Neal. You won't want to miss on the ground reports from the strike, how they earned wide support, and what lessons can be learned going forward.
This event will be livestreamed at facebook.com/jacobinmag, beginning at 6:50pm.

Don't miss Jacobin's coverage of the West Virgnia teachers's strike
At Jacobin we've been racing to keep pace with events in West Virgina. We've featured over a dozen pieces on the latest developments, providing political or historical context, and interviewing key participants. Here are some highlights of Jacobin's coverage:

What the Teachers Won
West Virginia shows that we can fight back and win. We talk to two teachers to assess the tentative settlement and what comes next.

“There Is No Illegal Strike, Just an Unsuccessful One”
The West Virginia teacher strike represents a return to public worker unionism's radical roots.

The Strike Is On
"We’re not going back to work until there’s solid proof our demands are going to be met," a striking teacher unionist tells Jacobin.

Do-It-Yourself Class Struggle
One lesson from the West Virginia teachers’ strike is clear: nobody is coming to save us. We’ll have to do it ourselves.

PS — Teachers, we're offering below-cost copies of our Class Action booklet, produced in conjunction with the Chicago Teachers Union's CORE caucus.