Carnegie, Steel and the Busting of Teacher Unions (Part I)
Note: A shorter version of this article was published today in Labor Notes.
Education bloggers have done a good job of covering how wealthy philanthropists like Bill Gates, Eli Broad and the Walton family (see here, here, here and here) have sought to privatize and corporatize public education (see here, here, here and here). Their objectives, however, are not limited solely to increasing capital’s access to this huge and relatively untapped market, though this is certainly a major goal (See No Capitalist Left Behind). They also want to crush teachers unions because they reduce profits by defending wages and benefits and by resisting privatization schemes. Additionally, Republicans and Tea Party activists want to eliminate unions because of their financial support for Democratic candidates.
Education bloggers have done a good job of covering how wealthy philanthropists like Bill Gates, Eli Broad and the Walton family (see here, here, here and here) have sought to privatize and corporatize public education (see here, here, here and here). Their objectives, however, are not limited solely to increasing capital’s access to this huge and relatively untapped market, though this is certainly a major goal (See No Capitalist Left Behind). They also want to crush teachers unions because they reduce profits by defending wages and benefits and by resisting privatization schemes. Additionally, Republicans and Tea Party activists want to eliminate unions because of their financial support for Democratic candidates.
Education Reform: A Union Busting Trojan Horse
While attempts to crush the unions legislatively (e.g., Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan) have
