Portside

During Iran’s post-revolution reform era (1997-2005), a new wave of trade unionism began in the country. However, this spring of unionism quickly turned to winter, and most union leaders were arrested when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. Nowadays, any attempts by workers to organise strikes are met with severe repercussions by security agents. Nonetheless union resistance is growing.

Teachers at the Paul Public Charter School in Washington DC are attempting to organize a union. If successful, they’d be the first unionized charter employees in the nation’s capital. Across the country, charter administrators and board members have generally fought union efforts.

As labor battles are traditionally viewed, making concessions on salary and benefits would have to be considered a defeat. But the faculty union regards the result of the strike as a clear-cut victory, a victory that preserved what many regard as one of the best university faculty contracts in the country.

Activists are calling for an end to charter schools and juvenile detention centers.

As education activists draw attention to high rates of suspensions, racial disparities, and the “school-to-prison pipeline,” the political winds are shifting.

In the past, unions sometimes shied away from knocking down systematic injustices, especially with regard to race. Not anymore. This is not the labor movement from last century. We will not sit on the sidelines. #FREEAMERICA is committed to joining others who are on the ground, doing the work to fix our broken criminal justice system. We are committed to standing with workers who are already in our schools standing between young people and the criminal justice system.

Former students who sued over the issue of teacher tenure asked the state Supreme Court to hear their appeal of the judicially whipsawed Vergara v. California case.