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


  • Bail Reform Undermined in New York and Across the Country
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Bail Reform Undermined in New York and Across the Country
    19 May 2023
    Erin George is National Director of Policy for the Bail Project.
  • Eric Adams' Response to the Killing of Jordan Neely
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Eric Adams' Response to the Killing of Jordan Neely
    19 May 2023
    Margaret Kimberley was a guest on the Sputnik program, The Critical Hour, with co-hosts Dr. Wilmer Leon and Garland Nixon. She discussed New York City mayor Eric Adams’ response to the killing of…
  • Durham Report Reveals the Real Threat to “Democracy” – The FBI Weaponized by Democrat Party Affiliated Elites
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Durham Report Reveals the Real Threat to “Democracy” – The FBI Weaponized by Democrat Party Affiliated Elites
    17 May 2023
    Donald Trump calls Russiagate a "hoax" but it is in fact much worse. The manufactured scandal was part of successful efforts to intimidate, to censor, and to discredit opposition to state…
  • Tribute to Comrade Chris Che Matlhako
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Tribute to Comrade Chris Che Matlhako
    17 May 2023
    Chris “Che” Matlhako was a Central Committee member of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and served as Secretary for International Relations at Party Headquarters when he passed away on April…
  • FACT SHEET: The Palestine Problem: Test Your Knowledge, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, 1967
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    FACT SHEET: The Palestine Problem: Test Your Knowledge, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, 1967
    17 May 2023
    Do you know that the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) published a fact sheet in 1967 detailing the truth about the history of Zionist, British, and U.S. aggression against the…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us