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 Oct 15, 2018
    Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio, Week of October 15, 2018
    16 Oct 2018
    Uganda's Yoweri Museveni worse than Idi Amin, says Milton Allimadi; Ajamu Baraka: Building the Black Alliance For Peace; Martha Escobar on the carceral state.
  • The Straight Line from Slavery to Mass Incarceration
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    The Straight Line from Slavery to Mass Incarceration
    15 Oct 2018
    The US model of mass incarceration can only be understood as an extension of slavery, said Martha Escobar, author of Captivity Beyond Prisons: Criminalization Experiences of La
  • Black America Must Say No to US Imperialism
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Black America Must Say No to US Imperialism
    15 Oct 2018
    The director of the Black Alliance for Peace, Ajamu Baraka, said it is vitally important to give voice to Black Americans’ historical opposition to US military adventures abroad.
  • Uganda President Worse Than Idi Amin
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Uganda President Worse Than Idi Amin
    15 Oct 2018
    Ugandan dissident entertainer and national legislator Bobi Wine says President Yoweri Museveni is worse than former dictator Idi Amin.
  • more
    Jahan Chowdhry, BAR Comments Editor
    Letters from BAR Readers This Week
    14 Oct 2018
    “World War Dangers in Syria,” “Syria and the S-300s,” and “
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us