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


  • accra reparation
    Mark P. Fancher
    Reparations by Appeal to Conscience or by Demands from a Position of Strength?
    07 Sep 2022
    The pursuit of justice and reparations for African people has been constant. The question of whether to pursue appeals for concessions or active struggles for power, has not been resolved.
  • Fact Find Mission to Donbass Part 3
    John Parker
    Fact Find Mission to Donbass Part 3
    07 Sep 2022
    John Parker is the Socialist Unity Party candidate for U.S. Senate in California on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. This is Part 3 of his report on his fact-finding trip observing …
  • At Least One Person Dead After a New Day of Anti-Government Protests in Haiti
    Peoples Dispatch
    At Least One Person Dead After a New Day of Anti-Government Protests in Haiti
    07 Sep 2022
    Haitians have been mobilizing against the Ariel Henry administration’s inability to combat crime, inflation and poverty. All of these ills are a direct result of Haiti's status as a puppet of the U.S…
  • Land Grabs and Conservation Propaganda
    Aby L. Sène
    Land Grabs and Conservation Propaganda
    07 Sep 2022
    The African conservation movement is run by European and American NGOs and wealthy individuals. Land grabs are committed in the name of biodiversity.
  • Black Agenda Radio September 2, 2022
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio September 2, 2022
    02 Sep 2022
    This segment examines the policing and incarceration systems and how the political duopoly protects them instead of protecting the people. CURB's mission is to reduce incarceration in…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us