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 Is Back Coalition: “Black Power Matters”
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Is Back Coalition: “Black Power Matters”
    16 Nov 2020
    “The struggle has to be more than simply a declaration of our significance as human beings, as in the term ‘Black Lives Matter,’” said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Bac
  •  BLM National Leadership Focused on Money and Careers
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    BLM National Leadership Focused on Money and Careers
    16 Nov 2020
    Breya Johnson, co-chair of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100) in Washington, DC, said her organization enjoys a “working relationship” with the local Black Lives Matter chapter, but
  • Black Voters: “Contrarian” Men and “Communal” Women
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Black Voters: “Contrarian” Men and “Communal” Women
    12 Nov 2020
    A significant portion of Black males are “contrarians” that take positions at odds with the general Black political consensus – while Black women tend to take the communal approach.
  • Freedom Rider: The Real Resistance Begins
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: The Real Resistance Begins
    11 Nov 2020
    “Kamala Auntie” and Joe from Scranton will do as little as possible so that “nothing will fundamentally change” that would halt endless wars and the Race to the Bottom. 
  • Joe Biden’s Victory is Still a Loss for Humanity
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Joe Biden’s Victory is Still a Loss for Humanity
    11 Nov 2020
    The Biden-Harris administration is good news for corporations, cops, war profiteers and banks too big to fail, but offers nothing to save the people and planet from multiple rises.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us