While the term divides us now, its history dates back to a time when mineworkers battled big coal – similar to teachers standing up for funding.
For educators in Oklahoma and other states, the strike demands go far beyond better pay. The strike gets at the heart of some of the biggest issues facing America’s children: access to effective teachers, high-quality learning materials, and modern facilities.
What makes the West Virginia Teachers strike similar to other effective acts of solidarity against entrenched right-wing power is that it was borne in the democratic cauldron of public schools.
By all accounts, the strike is a bottom-up rebellion. It was organized by rank-and-file teachers, with state teachers’ unions scrambling to catch up.
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The Labor Movement Should Follow Their Lead.
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It’s actually illegal for teachers to strike in West Virginia. They’re doing it anyway. Thousands of public school teachers across West Virginia went on strike this week in protest over their pay and benefits, affecting more than 277,000 students.
Teachers and public employees have been demonstrating for weeks, including a massive all-day protest at the Capitol on Friday, asking lawmakers to fully fund the Public Employees Insurance Agency and increase pay.
Saving the land cannot be separated from saving the people, their livelihood, health and the best of their way of life, from the reach of profiteers. The first peoples, the new pioneers of mountain farms, veterans of mining, labor in unions and not, coal-resistance activists have tales that can teach their more modernized would-be helpers. Learn to listen. It will take patience and perseverance to renew coal country, and the rest of the Earth too.
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