West Virginia teachers continue to strike:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/03/rank-and-file-west-virginia-teachers-union-strike-wildcat

West Virginia CWA has joined in:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/frontier-communications-workers-strike-in-west-virginia/2018/03/04/1a13fe7c-1fc6-11e8-946c-9420060cb7bd_story.html?utm_term=.54ca0b9d780d

And now Oklahoma:



Maybe this is only the beginning?

Also, pretty rad for a sitting senator to promote an illegal strike:

https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/970009429683965958

[Edited on March 4, 2018 at 11:28 PM. Reason : .]

3/4/2018 11:21:14 PM

This is awesome, and I imagine we'll be seeing more of these in the future. A return to labor movements is sorely needed right now. Especially in states like WV, which have a strong tradition of organized labor movements (coal miners strikes, etc). Apparently, if this strike isn't resolved soon, it could mirror the size of the strikes that took place in Wisconsin a few years ago.

For anyone interested in strike funding. The Wobblies (IWW) are supporting a strike fund.

https://www.youcaring.com/industrialworkersoftheworld-1111923


Also, an interview with one of the teachers on strike can be found here:

https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-190-schools-out-feat-michael-mochaidean-3418


The strike is over healthcare, FYI.

3/5/2018 3:37:19 AM

I get infuriated when I see the media completely ignore the strong labor history in WV and default to the “Trump voters in diners” horseshit.

Anyway, I hope the national press picks up more on this story. It’s far bigger than a lot of the nonsense getting front page billing.

[Edited on March 5, 2018 at 7:41 AM. Reason : X]

3/5/2018 7:40:48 AM

Quote :

"For anyone interested in strike funding. The Wobblies (IWW) are supporting a strike fund."

You can also join the IWW here for $33/mo (less if you don't make much money):

https://www.iww.org/membership/2

Quote :

"The strike is over healthcare, FYI."

Quote :

"I get infuriated when I see the media completely ignore the strong labor history in WV and default to the “Trump voters in diners” horseshit. "

It's interesting that MSM, in their extremely limited coverage, refuses to talk about the main trigger for the strikes, PEIA (government worker health insurance). Look at the sign in this NPR article, then look at the article itself. No mention.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/04/590689844/still-no-school-in-w-va-as-salary-snag-ensures-strike-will-go-on

3/5/2018 10:54:45 AM

Quote :

"Especially in states like WV, which have a strong tradition of organized labor movements (coal miners strikes, etc)."

Quote :

"I get infuriated when I see the media completely ignore the strong labor history in WV and default to the “Trump voters in diners” horseshit."

in 39 presidential elections since WV became a state, it has voted for a Democrat 20 times and a Republican 19 times. As swing-statey as it gets. Plus WV voted for the winning candidate 29 times to 10, so it has historically been a decent barometer for the nationwide public opinion.

But after going for Bill Clinton both times, WV has voted red in 5 straight elections. Then Trump received a higher % of WV votes than any other candidate in history.

I think this can be attributed to Republicans convincing the voters that the Democrats' war on global warming would kill the coal industry. But Trump's policies have only helped the highest level businessmen within the industry and has done nothing to increase pay or safer work standards for the miners.

WV now may be turning back the other way.

[Edited on March 5, 2018 at 3:15 PM. Reason : -]

3/5/2018 3:14:33 PM

Both parties have failed workers in WV.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/02/west-virginia-teachers-strike-energy-industry

Quote :

"The state Democratic Party in West Virginia has virtually collapsed over the last few years, and now occupies only a third of the seats in the legislature after holding majorities for over eighty years (1932 – 2014). The state Democratic Party’s internal contradiction of being both the party of coal and the party of the working class became increasingly untenable with the decline of industrial unionism and the rise of Third Way Democratic Party neoliberalism on the national stage. Over the past few decades, more and more West Virginians have lost faith in the Democratic Party, defecting to become independents. In 1996, 63 percent of West Virginia voters were registered Democrat, 30 percent Republican, and 7 percent independent. Twenty years later, in 2016, only 45 percent of voters were registered Democrat, with independents growing to 21 percent. The 2016 presidential election results — in which Trump carried the state with 68 percent of the vote, but Sanders beat Clinton in every county in the Democratic primary — suggests that voters don’t feel represented by the mainstream of either party. Voters perceived that the state Democratic Party was not doing much for working-class interests. And while many teachers today rightly fault the Republican majority for failing to take action on teacher pay and PEIA during this year’s legislative session, it’s hard to argue that the Democratic Party fought hard for teachers when it held the majority. [b]Indeed, despite being the majority party for eighty years, Democrats never granted collective bargaining rights to state employees. It was also the Democratic majority, led by then-governor Joe Manchin, that enacted corporate tax cuts a decade ago that currently cost the state an estimated $220 million a year in revenue, which would have been enough to give every public employee in the state a 12 percent raise. Those corporate tax cuts did not result in the private-sector job growth that was promised, but they’re a major reason why the state legislature now claims it can’t find the money to support public employees."

I think all of these Dem-backed protests and "grassroots" #resistance may be having an unintended side effect -- people are more engaged than they have been in a long time, and we're witnessing a surge of political and class consciousness.

3/5/2018 3:58:15 PM

Strike is over, all state employees are getting a 5% raise. Legislators have talked about cutting medicaid or other benefits programs to pay for it, so we'll see how that goes.

3/6/2018 8:07:24 PM

Quote :

"Working class in revolt"

Well, let's see. In WV, teacher salaries are something like $54,008 (I didn't google very long, maybe you can correct me) while the average income for the people is $39,170. Sounds to me more like the well off are striking to get even more money for themselves at the expense of those poorer than them.

[Edited on March 8, 2018 at 2:07 AM. Reason : .,.]

3/8/2018 2:02:54 AM

Thats silly. Only 29% of the population has a college degree so of course teachers are going to make more than average.

3/8/2018 2:07:30 AM

lol where the fuck did you get that number and why is it so precise down to the last $8?


The average teacher salary in WV is about $45k according to CNN, which is ~25-35% lower than the national average, which is far from being well off.


Annnnnd....I just googled "$54,008+WV+Teacher" and it looks like LoneSnark went to Salary.com and cherry picked the highest data point he could find, which is the average base salary for teachers in Morgantown, WV. Don't know if you know this, but there's an entire state outside of the college town in WV.


Also, as stated in this thread, it was about healthcare.

3/8/2018 2:39:01 AM

those fat cat teachers with their #2 pencils

3/8/2018 2:40:17 AM

At $45k, they're still doing better than the average West Virginian adult.

Teachers unions helped keep some of my disgracefully incompetent "educators" in their jobs. Another union tried to kill my dog. I've moved way left on a lot of issues, but as far as unions go...fuck 'em.

[Edited on March 8, 2018 at 8:01 AM. Reason : Send in the Pinkertons for all I care]

3/8/2018 7:59:57 AM

Quote :

"At $45k, they're still doing better than the average West Virginian adult."

They also have a college degree and are in a difficult job, working much more than 40 hours.

Anyways this wasn't the main issue. Their health insurance lost funding, effectively giving them a pay cut. And at the same time, they were implementing a program that required you to wear a step counter, and if you didn't walk a certain amount of steps per day, you owed a fee at the end of the year.

Quote :

"Teachers unions helped keep some of my disgracefully incompetent "educators" in their jobs. Another union tried to kill my dog. I've moved way left on a lot of issues, but as far as unions go...fuck 'em."

If you are anti-union, you should be happy to hear this was a wildcat strike (or ended up as one at least).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat_strike_action

I wonder though, if this is how you feel about unions, because they helped a couple teachers you thought were crappy, and tried to kill your dog (would like to hear that story), how do you feel about the police?

[Edited on March 8, 2018 at 11:04 AM. Reason : .]

3/8/2018 10:59:06 AM

Pretty sure Grumpy has a Gov't job, so it's kinda funny to hear him be all anti-union up in here

3/8/2018 11:06:11 AM

Yeah I wonder if he missed the part where this resulted in a 5% raise for ALL government employees.

More news from Oklahoma:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2018/03/oklahoma_teachers_union_calls_for_strike.html

Quote :

"The Oklahoma Education Association announced on Tuesday night that schools would shut down across the state if the state legislature does not pass a $10,000 pay raise for teachers and increased funding for schools by April 23. But that announcement sparked outcry among Oklahoma teachers, who called for a much earlier strike date of April 2. The teachers said April 23 was too late and wouldn't be as effective as striking before state testing dates. Other teachers have floated a March 26 strike date, which is the Monday after spring break. Union leaders said they wanted to give the legislature time to pass a bill that addresses their issues and that superintendents across the state supported the April 23 date. Update, 3/7, 5:30 pm: Wednesday afternoon, OEA president Alicia Priest posted a video message acknowledging the frustration and anger of teachers across the state. She said the union has set a new deadline for the state legislature to pass a bill with a significant teacher pay raise and increased education funding—April 1. If the legislature does not pass one, OEA will call for a statewide schools shutdown beginning April 2."

[Edited on March 8, 2018 at 11:13 AM. Reason : .]

3/8/2018 11:09:35 AM

Quote :

"If you are anti-union, you should be happy to hear this was a wildcat strike (or ended up as one at least)."

I actually am happy to hear it was a wildcat strike. If only they all were.

As for the salary, I just typed "WV teacher salary" and didn't open any links, google did its question answer thing. It seems google pulled its data from salary.com

Quote :

"They also have a college degree and are in a difficult job, working much more than 40 hours."

And? Because they have a piece of paper, they're entitled to demand those without such papers be forced to pay them more?

If WV doesn't pay enough, workers should go find work elsewhere. If student performance is awful solely because of poor teachers, then parents will protest for better teachers. Maybe they'd find a way to break the monopoly and get some competition so schools can compete on salary for good teachers.

3/8/2018 11:27:58 AM

The fact is, we don't live in a free market. I understand your view, but it's nothing more than a thought exercise.

3/8/2018 12:05:01 PM

Yeah..somewhere in between the three part time jobs parents have because the coal mine shut down, parents are going to find time to protest the learning conditions of their kids. Reeeaaal fuckin' likely.

Jesus, some of you people are reactionary. Not liking unions because of personal grievances is the shallowest form of political consciousness.

They're workers. They're agitating for better conditions for all workers. They aren't demanding the money come from their fellow workers, they're demanding it come from the rich, who have been getting tax break after tax break, robbing the state from the money needed to provide for the working class. Some of you motherfuckers need to look around and pick which side your on.

3/8/2018 12:20:02 PM

^

3/8/2018 12:42:56 PM

Quote :

"They aren't demanding the money come from their fellow workers, they're demanding it come from the rich"

They don't care where it comes from. If the homeless shelters must close so they can earn even more above the average, so be it. Fact is, they're just as greedy as those rich fat cats you hate so much. And I have chosen a side: I'm on the side of those without a college degree that could not easily switch careers if life was really intolerable for them. The state is already getting what it seems to think it is can get from the "Rich". The strike did not insist on raising taxes, only on raising costs. Rising wages for government workers means we cannot afford to hire any more. Higher paid teachers means fewer teachers. Higher paid bureaucrats means fewer bureaucrats. Government must do less than it could have done for those that really need its help.

It is because government is so important to our lives that we must fight the tendency for government to be captured to the interests of its own workforce.

3/8/2018 1:10:01 PM

straw man with a pinch of reductio ad absurdum

3/8/2018 1:15:30 PM

Quote :

"The strike did not insist on raising taxes, only on raising costs."

Hey here's something we can agree on. It would have been ideal to demand a tax increase, but that is sadly unrealistic. They would have brought in the national guard before raising taxes on the wealthy.

We need a general strike.

[Edited on March 8, 2018 at 1:20 PM. Reason : .]

3/8/2018 1:17:54 PM

Quote :

"I'm on the side of those without a college degree that could not easily switch careers if life was really intolerable for them. "

No the fuck you aren't. Because those without a college degree CANNOT AFFORD to send their children to private schools where teachers are well compensated. All of your little libertarian, free-market solutions require enough personal capital that poor parents DO NOT HAVE to raise learning conditions for their children.

Quote :

"The state is already getting what it seems to think it is can get from the "Rich". "

No person supposedly on the side of the poor would ever honestly say this.

3/8/2018 1:23:17 PM

Quote :

"All of your little libertarian, free-market solutions require enough personal capital that poor parents DO NOT HAVE to raise learning conditions for their children."

Having a well compensated teacher is not the same thing as getting a good education. You are clearly a stooge for the union and furthering the lie that "if only we cannot be fired and are guaranteed high salaries in overcrowded classrooms without any incentives to provide a good education then maybe we'll bother doing our jobs, if we feel like it."

But nope, we need an uneducated underclass to keep the game going, so reform is out of the question. Doing more is out of the question. All available funds should go towards throwing more money at government workers.

After-all...how does higher wages improve education? Is it the case that they would have hired different teachers if salaries had been higher? So are we now going to fire the current crop of inferior teachers to hire the better ones? Hell no - the strike certainly isn't in favor of that. So there is absolutely NO hope that this strike has in any way improved education. All it has done is drained education funds that could have otherwise been spend on things that might have actually improved education.

3/8/2018 1:35:34 PM

so these teachers are bad because they work for low wages (your argument, last paragraph) but a well compensated teacher is not a good teacher (your argument, first paragraph)?

in your ayn randian utopia, why should teachers continue to work for low wages? charity is bad, working a job because of the goodness of your heart is bad.

[Edited on March 8, 2018 at 1:52 PM. Reason : .]

3/8/2018 1:51:49 PM

I may have made a mistake here...I thought the good here was to improve education...I realize now upon re-reading that I'm the only one here that cares about that enough to mention it. Please disregard my last post.

My point was that the wage increase can not be expected to improve education levels in any way. It isn't going to replace the current teachers with better ones. All it will do is shift resources into the pockets of current teachers, be they good or bad.

3/8/2018 2:06:43 PM

What are you talking about? Paying teachers a FAIR salary is pretty much a requirement for keeping quality teachers around, even if it means having "bad" ones too. If you want to debate the quality of training most teachers receive, that's an entirely different conversation.

You're essentially saying that teachers are inherently greedy and are being overpaid.

3/8/2018 2:55:03 PM

he's actually saying they are all inherently bad since they were still getting shit wages

3/8/2018 3:06:23 PM

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that paying people fairly inevitably leads to poor performance, but I guess I should stop.

3/8/2018 4:06:11 PM

naw naw naww .....you've got it all wrong. You see, by paying them shit and stripping away their health benefits, you are actually incentivizing them to work harder because something something competition. If you paid them NOTHING, then they'd perform even better, because...something something free markets



[Edited on March 8, 2018 at 4:28 PM. Reason : ]

3/8/2018 4:27:56 PM

well by paying them shit they will have to quit, then the private industry can hire them for cheap, then loneshark's kids can just go to the private school and since loneshark himself is better off that means it worked for everyone! free market works!

3/8/2018 4:28:58 PM

I believe bootstraps is the word you’re looking for.

3/8/2018 4:29:04 PM

I'm an overpaid, fatcat greedy teacher, but all of this hyperbole makes me feel dumb.

3/8/2018 4:38:05 PM

You guys are fun.

3/8/2018 4:40:26 PM

I'm still laughing at the idea of the entire American Federation of Teachers and North Carolina Association of Educators holding a general meeting and conspiring to poison Grumpy's Pomeranian.

3/8/2018 4:45:51 PM

Like, I hope it was an extravagant heist that included a wide cast of eccentric teachers and Benicio Del Toro, where the operatives performed a kidnapping and ransom, with the coupe de grace being the planned execution of little Baxter with the weapons being compromised completely of items found in the teacher's June Box.

3/8/2018 4:55:54 PM

Quote :

"If you are anti-union, you should be happy to hear this was a wildcat strike"

I mean, I'm not happy to hear that schools were shut down in one of the states that is most dire need of a functioning education system. I suppose that, in general terms, I do prefer collective action outside of the decayed and corrupt union system.

Quote :

"how do you feel about the police?"

As with union members, I have nothing in particular to say about them as individuals. They run the gambit. But at an organizational level, the police in this country need sweeping changes and probably cause as many problems as they fix.

Quote :

"Pretty sure Grumpy has a Gov't job, so it's kinda funny to hear him be all anti-union up in here"

:shrug: I am not and never have been in a union. Government or otherwise, nobody in my office is in a union. It is possible that some of my benefits have been the result of union negotiations involving other offices in the same organization, at which point, what am I supposed to do? Not use them out of principle?

I'm also not opposed to every thing every union has done throughout history, but sometime between the "child labor/8 hour workdays" and "do-nothing jobs/making imbeciles un-fire-able/destroying American manufacturing" they went from problem-solver to problem-maker.

Quote :

"Not liking unions because of personal grievances is the shallowest form of political consciousness."

No, that would be internet trolling.

Quote :

"You're essentially saying that teachers are inherently greedy"

They are inherently greedy, just like the rest of us. None of them is going to turn down a pay raise. All of them will ask for one if they think they can get away with it. Just like everybody else. I don't fault them for that.

Paying them better doesn't "inevitably lead to poor performance" - although giving in to some of their other demands does, because it keeps imbeciles in charge of classrooms. But we'll focus on pay and health benefits. No, improving those does not adversely affect performance. But he's right that the money does come from somewhere, it has an opportunity cost, and that cost will affect other workers.

Meanwhile, he's right that raising pay does not guarantee better education outcomes. It may be a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient.

Quote :

"I'm still laughing at the idea of the entire American Federation of Teachers and North Carolina Association of Educators holding a general meeting and conspiring to poison Grumpy's Pomeranian."

I think it was SEIU that tried euthanize my African street cur. Though it might have been the Teamsters. It wasn't made clear to me. JFK International Airport and American Airlines also had a hand in it, so I don't like those capitalist enterprises, either. United treats me like a dog, but they've never tried to murder me or my pets.

AFT and NCAE were more involved in propping up the drooling ignoramuses that ran most of my elementary and middle school experiences, and who populated my experience working with Wake County Public Schools later on. I don't think they had a hand in the dog thing but, hey, maybe they were hitting back for my criticism of them over the years.

3/8/2018 5:51:52 PM

As an overpaid private teacher, I can say with confidence that most teachers are underpaid, unions are bad, AND the education system is broken. This is a multi-faceted issue. Just because improving teacher pay won't fix the broken education system, doesn't mean they don't need to be paid more. Both can be true.

With that said, when I began my career, I chose to work at a poor private school and be paid less. Sometimes you can be paid more but be paid less in reality. If your class size shrinks from 35 to 17, your work hours go down.

So improvements not related to salary could actually amount to a much larger pay increase than what a union may be fighting for. I think that is part of lonesharks point but I'm not sure

3/8/2018 5:56:16 PM

West Virginia teachers shouldn't get healthcare because Grumpy had a bad experience in customs

3/8/2018 6:11:04 PM

Nah, customs wasn't the problem. Also the teachers should probably get healthcare. But I'm not throwing my money to some anarcho-bolshie wobbly bullshit.

[Edited on March 8, 2018 at 6:23 PM. Reason : Anybody who doesn't join the IWW hates schoolteachers and children, apparently]

3/8/2018 6:23:15 PM

They should probably get healthcare, but they shouldn't organize or withhold their labor in order to get it.

3/8/2018 6:26:32 PM

Everybody here is fine with them withholding their labor. I dislike unions, but don't have a strong across-the-board feeling about strikes; and of course a fundamental premise of market economics is that they can withhold their labor from shitty-paying West Virginia and sell it for more to better-paying schools, states, or jobs.

People in here acting like they're going to bilk the wealthy capitalist plutocrats of West Virginia to pay for this shit.

[Edited on March 8, 2018 at 7:04 PM. Reason : You guys get that West Virginia doesn't get to tax Warren Buffet, right?]

3/8/2018 7:03:46 PM

Given what you just said, it's really funny that the richest person (and only billionaire) in West Virginia is the governor. And West Virginia is the richest delegation in congress.

http://www.rollcall.com/news/home/50-richest-members-of-congress-2014-everyone-ranked-by-state

3/8/2018 7:19:53 PM

Not only is he a rich billionaire plutocrat who inherited his families agriculture business and owns coal mines, but he's switched party affiliations from Republican to Democrat back to Republican. Dude's a fucking snake

3/8/2018 8:44:21 PM

he’s also morbidly obese

he’s practically a cartoon villain

3/8/2018 10:33:05 PM

Of course I knew as soon as I posted it that someone was going to have some prominent wealthy West Virginians, and yet I did it anyway.

For what it's worth I suspect that WV was the richest delegation; that link is three years old, and Jay Rockefeller retired two years ago.

But anyway, the larger point is that West Virginia is a poor state and there's only so much mileage you're going to get going after its wealthy population.

3/9/2018 7:21:23 AM

Yeah I didn't mean for it to refute your point, it's just a funny side note.

Buuut, check this out:

Quote :

"It was also the Democratic majority, led by then-governor Joe Manchin, that enacted corporate tax cuts a decade ago that currently cost the state an estimated $220 million a year in revenue, which would have been enough to give every public employee in the state a 12 percent raise. Those corporate tax cuts did not result in the private-sector job growth that was promised, but they’re a major reason why the state legislature now claims it can’t find the money to support public employees.""

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/02/west-virginia-teachers-strike-energy-industry

3/9/2018 11:23:50 AM

^It was the height of the Recession. Even the most progressive states were looking to cut/freeze salaries and cut corporate taxes. I have a hard time condemning a governor ina situation like that, were none of the choices are very good.

3/9/2018 1:48:27 PM

Quote :

"They should probably get healthcare, but they shouldn't organize or withhold their labor in order to get it."

Well, I know I'm perfectly happy with unions and striking. I'm all for getting together to exercise one's right to associate. My only objection is to government enforced monopolies as one finds in nearly all unions today. It is a love-hate thing. Just repeal one law and unions become awesome :-)

3/10/2018 10:51:34 AM

To put it another way, repeal one law and unions become just another form of corporation

3/10/2018 2:38:42 PM