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


  • Black Agenda Report Book Forum: An Interview with Garrett Felber
    Garrett Felber , Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    Black Agenda Report Book Forum: An Interview with Garrett Felber
    15 Feb 2023
    To commemorate 100 years since the birth of former political prisoner Martin Sostre, the Black Agenda Report Book Forum interviews Garrett Felber, A Visiting Fellow at Yale University who is…
  • The Caribbean Connection | Jeffrey Epstein, JP Morgan Chase and How Powerful Banks Escape Accountability
    Thad Baltimore
    The Caribbean Connection | Jeffrey Epstein, JP Morgan Chase and How Powerful Banks Escape Accountability
    15 Feb 2023
    Banks operate with impunity and so they act accordingly.
  • Report From Lima, Perú
    Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    Report From Lima, Perú
    15 Feb 2023
    On December 7, 2022 a right wing coup removed Perú’s President Pedro Castillo Terrones from power, but the people have protested against the coup regime ever since.
  • An Open Letter to Current and Former Prisoners, Their Families, Friends, and Comrades
    Shaka Shakur
    An Open Letter to Current and Former Prisoners, Their Families, Friends, and Comrades
    15 Feb 2023
    "We cannot go through decades of this physical and psychological abuse behind these walls and think We are coming home undamaged, without scars," explains New African political prisoner Shaka Shakur.
  • We Condemn the Repression in Cap Cana That Left One Haitian Worker Dead and Several Injured
    Socialist Movement of Workers of the Dominican Republic
    We Condemn the Repression in Cap Cana That Left One Haitian Worker Dead and Several Injured
    15 Feb 2023
    Violence against Haitians and Haitian descended people continues in the Dominican Republic. The Socialist Movement of Workers of the Dominican Republic condemn the latest state sanctioned…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us