Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Rahm Emanuel & Bruce Rauner On Jihad to Eliminate Unions in Chicago, says Former Union Organizer Jane McAlevey
01 Apr 2015
🖨️ Print Article

by Doug Henwood at KPFA's Behind The News

US living standards for ordinary people have deteriorated the last 40 years because Democrats and Republicans have systematically de-unionizeds the country, says former union organizer Jane McAlevey.  Illinois governor Bruce Rauner and Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emanuel are on a jihad to kill the last unions in Chicago, the better to impose more privatizations, cuts in child care, wages, education and more austerity.

McAlevey, author of "We Need Syriza Here In Illinois" published last month in The Nation, declares the distinction between people working in the so-called “public sector” and “private sector” is nonsense. There are not two economies, there is one, and there are not two ways that workers get treated, depending on whether they work for government or corporations, there is one.    She reminds us that real unions create traditions and institutions of internal democracy, which is not the same as "horizontalism" that they run strikes regularly, and that they are frequently led, as the Chicago Teachers Union was in 2012 by black women.  

McAlevey was a remarkably successful union organizer for SEIU in Nevada, a so-called right to work state.

Left economist Doug Henwood, among much else the host of KPFA's Behind the News, interviews Jane McAlevey on the connection between Bruce Rauner, Scott Walker and Rahm Emanuel, how the 2012 Chicago Teachers Union strike kept Mayor Rahm Emanuel from closing 100 Chicago public schools instead of just 50, and the ultimate collective power of organizing the workplace.

Catch Doug Henwood's program every week here.

McAlevey is the author of Raising Expectations, Raising Hell.

 

 

 

 

 



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/RadioArchive/2015/15_02_19.mp3

More Stories


  • Sara Flounders
    U.S. Government Terrorists Weaponize Subpoenas vs. the Left
    29 Jul 2026
    The House Ways and Means subpoenas against peace and justice organizations, paired with the State Department's designation of Cuba as the center of global terrorism, represent a coordinated…
  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio July 24, 2026
    24 Jul 2026
    In this week’s segment, we discuss sportswashing and the rationale of the calls to boycott the U.S. and the recent World Cup. But we begin with the Trump administration’s domestic repression and…
  • Joint terrorism task force
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    NSPM-7: The New Rationale for Domestic and Global Fascism
    24 Jul 2026
    The Trump administration has accelerated its attacks on leftist organizations and individuals while also justifying its genocidal siege of Cuba with the release of the document "Cuba: The Capital of…
  • Boycott USA
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Sportswashing, the 2026 World Cup, and the Movement to Boycott the U.S.
    24 Jul 2026
    Austin Cole is a Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) National Co-Coordinator. BAP and other organizations called on the international community to boycott the 2026 World Cup, which was held in the United…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Building Black Self-Determination and Ending the Politics of Fear
    22 Jul 2026
    Black political self-determination is always tenuous, even when Black people hold office. Now that DSA and other leftists are winning elections, the contradictions of Black politics are becoming more…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us