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 Radio, Week of December 2, 2018
    Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio, Week of December 2, 2018
    04 Dec 2018
    Activists Demand Sanders Take Stand Against Militarism, Judge to S
  • Judge to Soon Rule on Mumia’s Appeal Bid
    Kyle Fraser , Black Agenda Radio producer
    Judge to Soon Rule on Mumia’s Appeal Bid
    04 Dec 2018
    Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Leon Tucker promised a decision on whether a former prosecutor unlawfully took part as a judge in rejecting Mumia Abu Jamal’s appeal of his 1981 conviction in the ki
  • Chicago Movement to Target Pro-Cop City Council Members
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Chicago Movement to Target Pro-Cop City Council Members
    03 Dec 2018
    “There are 34 alderpeople who were all part of the conspiracy to hide the video” that was key to proving a Chicago cop murdered Laquan McDonald, said Black Lives Matter activist Aislinn Pul
  • Activists Demand Sanders Take Stand Against Militarism
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Activists Demand Sanders Take Stand Against Militarism
    03 Dec 2018
    David Swanson, one of 100 activists and intellectuals that sent an open letter calling on Senator Bernie Sanders to finally tackle the US war budget, said “It’s incoherent to have
  • Jill Stein Lawsuit Forces Adoption of Paper Ballots and Election Audits in Pennsylvania
    Bruce A. Dixon , BAR managing editor
    Jill Stein Lawsuit Forces Adoption of Paper Ballots and Election Audits in Pennsylvania
    29 Nov 2018
    When you absolutely, positively need to steal an election, nothing beats the simple elegance of modern, computerized faith based voting machines.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us