Springfield Roulette? Chicago Teachers Union: Political Strategies of Retreat or Advance
[Editor's Note: The following was sent in by Larry Duncan, who has been on the staff of Substance as an inactive reporter for some time. He has asked that we forward it, which at Substance means publishing it. In a note, he says: "The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of any organizations I may belong to (for example, Labor Beat). Also, although I joined CORE last summer, I am not able to post on or receive from the CORE listserve, so I've asked that someone forward this to the CORE list."]
The April 9, 2011 marches and rally in Chicago brought out more than 10,000 union members, supporters and their families in support of unions and in opposition to union busting legislations across the USA. The photo above shows the center of the crowd and the big screen looking northwest from the press riser. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.It has often been noted that public sector unions have more membership than private sector unions. But there is another important distinctions: public sector labor disputes are much more conspicuously political than those in the private sector, so the question of evaluating the political tools used in these fights can’t be easily ignored.
In this current season of the Chicago Teachers Union’s parlaying and manoeuvring with the Democratic Party in Springfield and Chicago, here is a short description of the predicament it is in:
Although the details have been reported more thoroughly elsewhere, legislation seems imminent (SB 7) that will make striking almost impossible and put seniority through the shredder; the confidence of the CTU rank-and-file in its leadership has been shaken because the latter, without informing and involving the members, negotiated this retreat before the Stand for Children forces in Springfield, with help from the union’s ‘friends’ in the state Democratic Party; some elements in the CTU leadership are in denial by describing the SB 7 developments as a kind of victory; the opposition caucus (Marilyn Stewart’s UPC) in the CTU may be encouraged (ironically) to use these setbacks as an excuse to attack the leadership.
One of the many days of protests in Madison Wisconsin was February 21, 2011, when the photograph above was taken. Substance photo by Garth Liebhaber.From the Chicago City Hall side of things, the anti-labor Rahm Emanuel, the new Democratic Party mayor, will be gearing up to exploit these CTU losses. He has already appointed Jean-Claude Brizard, former public schools head from Rochester, NY, who is clearly a guided missile aimed at the CTU. And to put the cherry on the top of this cake, Mayor Emanuel’s powerful mentor President Obama, who stands behind Arne Duncan’s attack on national public education, has just opened up his re-election headquarters over at One Prudential Plaza, and plans to raise nearly one billion dollars for his campaign. The power and money of the city and national Democratic Party machines will be directed toward suffocating into silence the teachers union, lest it embarrass the incumbent Obama and Emanuel with any pushback.
The most important political question in all of this is (and it’s not being asked enough): How much longer will the CTU believe that it can defend public sector unions and public education through the Democratic Party?
Perhaps there’s still hope in this strategy because a few newly elected Aldermen have pro-CTU sympathies…before they hit the fan in the City Council?
One is reminded of the Monty Python movie scene where the knight in a sword fight looses first one arm, then another arm, then a leg, and so on. At the loss of each appendage, he courageously declaims: it’s nothing, it’s only a scratch, I can keep fighting. This is the kind of devotion (tragic in this case and not comic) that much of the labor movement has toward the Democratic Party. How much more should be lost, how many more defeats, concessions and retreats must be served up by the Democrats before the union movement says enough, we must abandon this party as an instrument through which we can survive or, indeed, be victorious? If we continue to insist the only eternal choice we have is the Democratic Party, how in touch with reality are we?
Protests in Chicago includes picketing of the March 23 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education by groups continuing to oppose the school closing and other mendacious policies of the Chicago Board of Education. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Jan Rodolfo, National Outreach Coordinator, National Nurses United, commenting in Madison recently, said, “When the Democrats and those who represent workers get up publicly and say, essentially, ‘We’re willing to concede pensions, we’re willing to concede pay, we’re willing to not take on the argument that public employees were not the problem in the first place, we’re willing to concede the idea that somehow we have bankrupted the state’, when folks who should be defending working people are up front actually saying that, we run the risk of a victory being defined in Wisconsin as ‘deep concessions is a victory as long as we hold on to a little piece…we hold on to our rights but we sacrifice our dignity’.”
Translated into Illinois terms, is this the CTU vis-a-vis SB 7.
Now some in the teachers union may respond by saying that adhering to the traditions of working with the Democrats to achieve labor’s goals is being realistic, it’s where the action is if you need to get things done. But let’s keep in mind that the Democratic Party is, now more and more, an organization of the employers, dedicated to serving capitalism, the profit motive, overwhelmingly funded and controlled by the very very rich, who have a big stake in wrecking the public sector. The Democrats are part of the very state (employer) with which the union is negotiating.
The March 19 protests against the TIF ripoffs marches up Clybourn Ave in Chicago towards Grossinger Cadillac, where a large crowd filled the car dealership's lobby to protest the fact that Grossinger had been given millions of dollars from the TIF, $4 million of which could have gone to schools. Substance photo by Howard Heath.In the private sector, one is reminded of Productivity Circles that were being pushed a number of years ago on the UAW in the auto industry, for example. Productivity Circles, created and controlled by management, were set up so that a few representatives from the unions got to sit around a table with management and production supervisors, and everybody pretended that this was democratic decision making. But all that happened was that the unions gave up more and more, while telling the rank-and-file that somehow they had to take part in them because that was where the action was and where decisions were going to be made for the factory floor. Big mistake.
Are the halls and side-rooms of Springfield the only game in town (State) where the deals get done? The Horseshoe Casino is the only place in town where you get to play roulette. But the roulette wheel is fixed and the more and more you play it, the more you loose. That is because the house makes all the rules, and the odds are rigged against the gambler. Surely, the teachers union especially, where a number of its members study and teach history professionally, can zoom out from this narrow Springfield picture and see the big historic panorama of the grand battlefield.
The essence of a union is that it is an organization that withholds the labor of its members. That is what distinguishes it from other kinds of organizations. The union movement has over the years more and more retreated from the essence of what unions are. If the unions never allow themselves to be what they are, the will be extinguished. They are now down in Springfield merging (“becoming one”) with their employer.
"Money for books, not bankers" was one of the slogans at the March 19 march protesting corruption in Chicago's TIFs. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.But utilizing strikes, general strikes, and other direct actions must still ultimately face the question that, once a victory in won in the public sector, some state entity must exist to organize and resuscitate the clinics and agencies, revitalize the schools and public infrastructures, and write the enlarged paychecks to an expanded public sector workforce. That raises the question of what class will control the state at the administrative level, and through which political party will that be done (in the favor of a victorious, ascendant labor movement).
And so we arrive at the question of the alternative to the present strategy.
Writing in a response to a report on the fight over SB 7 in Substancenews.net, Rod Estvan commented:
"I think one thing becomes very clear from this experience and that is the union movement as a whole has hitched its wagon to the Democratic party and that party under Obama is moving rapidly to the right.
"It is easy to start yelling about labor needing to break from the Democratic party and calling for a labor based party, it is far harder to do it in practice… But labor and progressives who are fighting to retain what little is left of human services in our state have to begin somewhere to move away from dependence on the Democratic Party. We are being sold down the drain again and again. I am not wise enough to know how to do this and yet not have virtually all labor rights destroyed while a break from the Democratic party takes place."
Another view of the massive April 9 crowd in Daley Plaza in Chicago shows a quarter of the crowd looking southeast from the press riser. Daley Plaza was so packed that the crowd filled sidewalks on three sides. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Estvan has very well described the problem, and I don’t know that anybody is wise enough to know exactly how to gain independence from the Democratic Party. It certainly wouldn’t be some miniscule Labor Party of a small left group.
This independent party hasn’t been achieved yet. It will have to be built by the teaches union, and other public sector unions especially, or they will not survive. Sink or swim. The first steps would be, I would think, for such labor organizations in the city to form committee to explore the first, realistic early steps toward that goal. There could then be exploratory discussions among different unions, such as CTU and ATU locals, to consider calling a city-wide assembly of unions, community organizations and their allies, to lay the basis for a permanent, independent political organization for labor, looking 2 years or 4 years down the road to fielding candidates in the wards and city-wide. It would be founded above all on the principle: Labor Must Advance, Never Retreat!
Combined with continuing direct action strategies, such a solid, broad movement, being built in the labor movement and communities, would be the way to transform this current retreat into an attack. While it was in its early stages, all participating unions would still have the option, individually, to manoeuvre as they wished with existing political parties. But the new independent political creation would as such exist not to endorse other political parties, but to build itself.
Some might argue that Democratic Party politicians once they heard of this would retaliate against the unions who participate in it. One answer would be to consider the case of the battered wife, who is afraid to leave her husband because, if she did, her husband would find her and beat her again. So she has to proceed carefully at first, find counseling, plan the escape, make plans with a halfway house and get support. Of course, such analogies are useful only up to a point.
My suggestions here on how the CTU and public sector unions can start early steps toward a labor party creation process are just suggestions. The CTU, ATU, and others will need to create those plans themselves and will come up with much better ideas than I have here. But the first step is crucial: to decide that it must be done. The unions must first decide to plan their escape from the Democrats. Hasn’t that time now come? Or what more must happen?
