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


  • Abayomi Azikiwe
    Detroit’s Wayne State U Encampment Shut Down by Police
    12 Jun 2024
    At 6:00 am, cops rushed in to break up the peaceful protest which was demanding the disclosure and divestment of WSU from entities with investments in the state of Israel.
  • Peoples Dispatch
    Biden Shuts Down US-Mexico Border
    12 Jun 2024
    Border shutdown will go into effect immediately, barring asylum seekers from entering the United States.
  • Maureen Clare Murphy
    Palestinians Massacred in “Rescue” Operation Lauded by US
    12 Jun 2024
    The recent massacre in the Nuseirat refugee camp that killed over 200 Palestinians is being touted as a successful rescue mission by Israel and the United States.
  • Natasha Lennard
    New York Spends $225 Million on Its Own “Cop City” — to Make the Whole City Run on Cops
    12 Jun 2024
    A proposed New York training facility shows how establishment politicians only understand governance through policing.
  • Alander Rocha
    Inmates Challenge Motion to Dismiss in Alabama Forced Labor Federal Lawsuit
    12 Jun 2024
    The lawsuit against Alabama state officials, agencies, local governments, and private companies for their involvement in the prison labor program continues. Prisoners now must fight a wave of motions…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us