Why Teachers' Unions & Due Process Matter
Today, Leo Casey of the Albert Shanker Institute joins Deborah Meier on the Bridging Differences blog.
Deb:
So we begin our conversation with the idea of democracy. It is the pivotal idea in the political heritage we share, as a strong conception of democracy has been at the root of the work both of us have done in schools, in unions, and in civic life. We both came to that work with a conviction that we were part of a democratic left, as our vision of a better world had democracy as its non-negotiable center. On the subject of democracy, we will have to do some work to find any significant differences that need bridging.
American democracy is, as you say, in trouble. Economic inequality has reached heights unseen since the late 1800s. Unaccountable money in our politics, turned into a deluge by Citizens United, is making a mockery of the bedrock democratic principle of one person, one vote. The right of all Americans to political voice and self-government, hard won by epic struggles and great sacrifices, is being whittled away by voter suppression laws. Courts create new rights for corporations out of whole cloth, while they make it harder and harder for working people to exercise their rights.
Why does America find itself in the middle of a new Gilded Age, with its democracy embattled? In large measure, I would argue, because a beleaguered American labor movement has been in retreat for three decades, losing battle after battle. It wasn't always this way. For most of the 20thcentury, the political power of American unions was decisive in campaigns for social and economic reform, such as the New Deal and the Great Society, and in the struggles for freedom and human rights, such as the civil rights movement. But, by the end of the century, the once great industrial unions that had led and won those battles were shadows of their former selves. There remained only a handful of American public-sector unions that possessed the organizational capacity and the political strength to challenge growing corporate power in elections, in legislatures, and in the streets. Central to this group were teachers' unions, the one part of the American labor movement in which the majority of its sector was still organized.
As the strength of the American labor movement waned, emboldened corporate power increasingly set its sights on the remaining centers of union strength, teachers' unions and other public-sector Why Teachers' Unions & Due Process Matter - Bridging Differences - Education Week: