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


  • Midterm Elections: Corporate Democrats Versus the Monster They Empowered
    Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    Midterm Elections: Corporate Democrats Versus the Monster They Empowered
    08 Nov 2018
    Only transformational programs, like single payer health care, can erode the coherence of the White Supremacist Bloc, and at the same time galvanize the numeric majority of the nation.
  • Black Agenda Radio, Week of November 5, 2018
    Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio, Week of November 5, 2018
    08 Nov 2018
    Parthas: 13th amendment still permits slavery; Friedman: solitary confinement routinely used against US political prisoners; white nationalist movements continue to evolve; US govt guilt of colonia
  • Freedom Rider: Black People Need Birthright Citizenship
    Margaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Black People Need Birthright Citizenship
    07 Nov 2018
    If white nationalists are allowed to abolish birthright citizenship, they will immediately move to de-Americanize as many Blacks as possible, for criminal convictions or poverty.
  • On Rage, Reading Books, and Other Necessities for the “Millennial Generation”
    Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor
    On Rage, Reading Books, and Other Necessities for the “Millennial Generation”
    07 Nov 2018
    Young people in the US are increasingly open to socialism and radical ideas, but less likely to study the science of revolutionary change.
  • Et tu, RT? Amplifying Western Disinformation on Rwanda
    Ann Garrison , BAR contributor
    Et tu, RT? Amplifying Western Disinformation on Rwanda
    07 Nov 2018
    The Great Lie about the Rwandan bloodbath opened the door to a far larger genocide in Congo and justified US military interventions all over the planet.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us