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


  •  Half of Brazil’s Black “Quilombos” Denied State Recognition
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Half of Brazil’s Black “Quilombos” Denied State Recognition
    01 Dec 2020
    The autonomous settlements established by Black and indigenous Brazilians to escape slavery and ongoing oppression number between 3,000 and 5,000, “but the Brazilian government only recognizes abou
  •  Racism and Violence Against Blacks Endemic to US
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Racism and Violence Against Blacks Endemic to US
    01 Dec 2020
    Critical Race Theory holds that racism is endemic to US society, while Afropessimism and Social Death “suggests that, regardless of what Black bodies do, [they] will experience gratuitous violence,
  •  Racist Imperialism Killed Millions in Congo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Racist Imperialism Killed Millions in Congo
    01 Dec 2020
    “More than 5.4 million died in the DRC as a direct or indirect consequence of the ongoing racist, neocolonial policy imposed on the Congolese population in an attempt to dismantle the Congo,” said
  • Biden, the Emcee at the Billionaires’ Ball
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Biden, the Emcee at the Billionaires’ Ball
    26 Nov 2020
    The Lords of Capital use periods of crisis to devour the less-rich and reshape the political economy to their further advantage, so that the Joe Bidens of the world jump higher and come quicker whe
  • Freedom Rider: Censorship in the Biden Era
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Censorship in the Biden Era
    25 Nov 2020
    The corporate media have joined the incoming administration in deciding what we can and cannot see and hear.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us