Rahm Emanuel & Bruce Rauner On Jihad to Eliminate Unions in Chicago, says Former Union Organizer Jane McAlevey | Black Agenda Report

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.

listen

http://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/RadioArchive/2015/15_02_19.mp3

More Stories

Vijay Prashad
The Rise of NATO in Africa
31 May 2022
NATO is not the defensive alliance of north Atlantic nations that it claims to be. It is a tool of imperialism which has spread its handiwork all over the world, including on the African…
Sheila Xiao and Manolo De Los Santos
The People’s Summit for Democracy Offers a Progressive Vision to Counter U.S. Dominance in the Region
31 May 2022
The People's Summit for Democracy will be a much needed counterweight to the U.S. dominated Summit of the Americas.
Bertony Dupont
Summit of the Americas or Summit of the United States of America?
31 May 2022
The U.S. is using the upcoming Summit of the Americas to bully the rest of the region. The current puppet leader of Haiti must follow U.S. dictates yet is invited, while legitimate leaders…
Abayomi Azikiwe
Pan-Africanism Yes! U.S. AFRICOM and NATO No!
31 May 2022
Pan-African solidarity and the struggle against imperialism are key in advancing the condition of African states and peoples.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio May 27, 2022
27 May 2022
East New York Community Land Trust reports on NYPD use of vacant land, John Parker's fact-finding trip to Russia and Ukraine, and a Greenville, North Carolina organizer explains the significance of…