Illustration by Amalia Rinehart The last year has been a big one for American labor unions. From Wisconsin to Alabama to the NBA, policy makers are re-examining their stances on collective bargaining. After running largely on an economic platform, Republicans took their success in the November 2010 elections as a cue to advance conservative economic policies. Many lawmakers began to characterize wages and benefits for public-sector workers as a...
...to the Top, is NCLB 2.0, has unleashed an era of teacher-bashing, more teaching to the test, more school closings, privatization, and deprofessionalization. CPR: What do you think is and should be the role of teaches’ unions in teacher evaluations? Bell: The main role of unions is to protect due process in terms of teaching and to fight for decent wages and working conditions. I think the unions play a role along with other groups in help...
...r that has seen wide-ranging CPU debates on the minimum wage, religion in the public sphere, and affirmative action, the two groups clashed over the resolution, “Resolved: Public sector employees should not be allowed to form unions.” Singh opened debate by attempting to preempt Republican arguments, saying that numerous laws and Supreme Court decisions provided a clear legal basis for the rights of public-sector workers to unionize and collectiv...
..., the connection between personal hardships during the Great Recession and historical trends in neoliberal governance has become much more salient. Cuts to public education funding, as well as increased hostility to teachers’ unions, are textbook cases of neoliberal policy. Today, for parents and communities feeling the squeeze of corporate education reform, the relation to larger policy trends is increasingly clear. For many, the fact that a lar...
...s ruling in Citizens United vs. FEC (2010) and again in its reversal of the Montana Supreme Court’s ruling on Montana’s campaign finance laws this past year, the Court has greatly enhanced the influence corporations and unions have on the political process. “Super PACs” with unlimited budgets have arisen, which, though supposedly independent, almost always directly support individual political campaigns, often through undisclosed donors. T...
...rife facing Italy and the psychological toll correspondingly inflicted on the struggling citizens. With the Italian government acquiescing to international demands for tax hikes, spending cuts, and pension reductions, Italian unions and workers are afraid that they will have to shoulder the lion’s share of the oncoming austerity. Part of the labor reforms presented by the government include stipulations which would make it easier to fire workers,...
From Wikimedia Commons This past week, Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin, trounced his Democratic challenger, Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, in a heavily publicized recall election. Only two years after being elected governor over Barrett, Walker faced recall due to public rage over his legislation that stripped public sector unions of most of their collective bargaining rights. Walker’s margin of victory over Barrett i...
...nize little for the Egyptian people who craved a transparent, democratic government. However, today, Al Jazeera reported that 20,000 factory workers have stayed away from work in a nation-wide strike planned by Egyptian labor unions. Though it is unclear whether these strikers are united under one democratic cause, there is no doubt that they are adding momentum to the pro-democracy demonstrations that reached a disappointing anti-climax in the p...
...s elections, most Democrats would even agree with this assessment. But now, the left is saying that Ohio Republicans scared off voters by going too far with State Senate Bill 5, which would have severely limited public-sector unions’ bargaining rights in a state where organized labor still has enormous political clout. With Issue 2’s defeat, one has to assume Governor John Kasich’s ham-handed treatment of government reform has changed the game an...
...T and school district leaders have never been eager to converse in the past, Gov. Cuomo made his promise to withhold a scheduled 4% increase in State aid to districts which are unable to reach a compromise with local teachers unions on evaluations before January 17. In NYC, this cut amounts to a whopping $300 million dollars. It is clear that Gov. Cuomo will not let go of his stick. And there is no reason for us to ask that of him. We believe tha...
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