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 Alliance for Peace Stands in Solidarity with the People of Haiti and Haitian Migrants Against Racist Harassment and Mass Deportations in the Dominican Republic
    Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team
    Black Alliance for Peace Stands in Solidarity with the People of Haiti and Haitian Migrants Against Racist Harassment and Mass Deportations in the Dominican Republic
    07 Dec 2022
    The Black Alliance for Peace again brings attention to the Dominican Republic's human rights violations against Haitians and Haitian descended Dominicans.
  • Merkel Reveals West’s Duplicity
    Scott Ritter
    Merkel Reveals West’s Duplicity
    07 Dec 2022
    Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted that the collective west never had any intention of honest dealings with Russia. This "war of choice" was not provoked by Russia.
  • Afghanistan News Update #15
    Black Alliance For Peace
    Afghanistan News Update #15
    07 Dec 2022
    The U.S. continues its theft of Afghanistan's assets, and the people there continue to suffer. 
  • Black Agenda Radio December 2, 2022
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio December 2, 2022
    02 Dec 2022
    The NYPD Gang Database profiles communities of color, Cleveland's mayor breaks a campaign promise for community control of police, and a conversation on which protests are considered legitimate, and…
  • Activists Demand Report on the NYPD Gang Database
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Activists Demand Report on the NYPD Gang Database
    02 Dec 2022
    Rigodis Appling has been a public defender in Manhattan for 17 years. She is currently working in the Special Litigation and Community Justice Unit at The Legal Aid Society. She is also a founding…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us