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


  • Standing with Julian Assange
    Ann Garrison , BAR contributor
    Standing with Julian Assange
    26 Sep 2018
    Pacifica radio stations are known as havens for leftwing thought and action, but the Berkeley station and the national Pacifica board have yet to come to the defense of Wikileak’s Julian Assange.
  • Freedom Rider: World War Dangers in Syria
    Margaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: World War Dangers in Syria
    26 Sep 2018
    Israel has bombed Syria at will, apparently with Russian permission, but that may change after the downing of a Russian plane.
  • What Syria Continues to Teach Us
    Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor
    What Syria Continues to Teach Us
    26 Sep 2018
    Leftists should turn their attention to the New Guard Fascists -- the enemies of the people at the top of the class structure and the armed body, the state, that protects the class structure.
  • Death of a Torturer
    Ramsin Canon
    Death of a Torturer
    26 Sep 2018
    Jon Burge gleefully coerced confessions from black men to get them convicted of crimes they often hadn’t committed and keep them in cages for the rest of their lives.
  • BAR Book Forum: Daniel Raventós’ and Julie Wark’s “Against Charity”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Daniel Raventós’ and Julie Wark’s “Against Charity”
    26 Sep 2018
    Conspicuous charity is one way of making great wealth seem respectable and even blessed in religious terms.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us