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


  • Martial Law By Other Means: Corporate Strangulation of Dissent
    Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    Martial Law By Other Means: Corporate Strangulation of Dissent
    09 Aug 2018
    “The ‘hate speech’ trick, in practice, rewards Black people’s occupiers and abusers (the police) and renders voices of protest illegitimate and mute.”
  • Freedom Rider: Social Media’s Danger to the Black Left
    Margaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Social Media’s Danger to the Black Left
    08 Aug 2018
    “The move against Alex Jones will be used to defend further censoring of left wing voices.”
  • Wikileaks: Rwandan Reconciliation Is a Lie
    Ann Garrison , BAR contributor
    Wikileaks: Rwandan Reconciliation Is a Lie
    08 Aug 2018
    One of the many thousands of diplomatic cables that Wikileaks released between February 18, 2010, and September 1, 2011 revealed the lie beneath Rwanda's shiny surface.
  • Russiagate Crusaders Don’t Want Democracy, Just War
    Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor
    Russiagate Crusaders Don’t Want Democracy, Just War
    08 Aug 2018
    “No political movement in the US exists to stop the Deep State from suppressing the content and ideology of Black Agenda Report or even Black Lives Matter as agents of the Kremlin.”
  • Putting Afro-Pessimism, Intersectionality, and Solidarity to Work
    Tryon P. Woods
    Putting Afro-Pessimism, Intersectionality, and Solidarity to Work
    08 Aug 2018
    “If the Movement for Black Lives can indirectly lead to an expanded sphere of safety for white women of a certain class status, with no commensurate enhanced protection for black people
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us