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
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio February 23, 2024
    23 Feb 2024
    This week we hear about the implications of the anti-imperialist struggle in the African nation Guinea-Bissau.
  • DRC
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Colonialism, Imperialism, and Conflict in the Congo
    23 Feb 2024
    Abayomi Azikiwe joins us to discuss events in eastern Congo, the role of US backed nations such as Rwanda, and the history of exploitation and imperial control which caused the…
  • Immigrant Justice Network
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Bipartisan Consensus for Punitive Immigration Policies Continues - Part 2
    23 Feb 2024
    Aly Wane of the Immigrant Justice Network discusses immigration in the second part of a two-part interview. Punitive immigration policies are bipartisan, with groups such as Haitians being targeted…
  • Guinea-Bissau
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Guinea-Bissau Struggles Against Imperialism
    23 Feb 2024
    Rafiki Morris joins us from Washington D.C. to discuss the upcoming demonstration, “Open the Peoples National Assembly in Guinea-Bissau” and why this action is so important.
  • BT News
    Jemima Pierre, BAR Editor and Contributor
    Haiti Doesn’t Have a ‘Gang’ Problem, It Has a US Imperialism Problem w/ Dr. Jemima Pierre
    21 Feb 2024
    Dr. Jemima Pierre joins BreakThrough News to discuss the nationwide uprisings in Haiti where thousands of demonstrators have flooded the streets calling for the ouster of the unelected Prime Minister…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us