Koch Brothers Plan New Scheme Fully to Privatize American Education—at Public Expense
Last Friday, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank described this year’s wave of strikes and walkouts by school teachers: “Something funny happened on the way to the labor movement’s funeral. When Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and his antilabor colleagues on the Supreme Court handed down the Janus v. AFSCME decision last June, unions braced for the worst.” But, Milbank concludes: “Labor leaders ought to thank Alito—and send chocolates to the Koch brothers for bankrolling the anti-union court case. Their brazen assault, combined with President Trump’s hostility toward labor, has generated a backlash, invigorating public-sector unions and making a case for the broader labor movement to return to its roots and embrace a more militant style.”
I don’t know about the implications for all of labor, and I’d argue with Milbank’s point that this year’s strikes by teachers have been primarily a response to the Janus decision. The growing wave of teachers’ strikes has instead been a cry for help from a profession of hard-working, dedicated public servants disgusted with despicable working conditions, lack of desperately needed services for their students, and insultingly low pay.
But Milbank is correct that the Janus decision has not undermined membership in the two big public sector teachers’ unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association: “The American Federation of Teachers expected it might lose 30 percent of its revenue after the high court gave public-sector workers the right to be free riders, benefiting from union representation but paying nothing. Instead, the 1.7 million-member union added 88,500 members since Janus—more than offsetting the 84,000 ‘agency-fee payers’ it lost because of the Supreme Court ruling… The NEA had projected a loss of as many as 200,000 members, based on previous drop-membership campaigns. Instead, the 3 million-member union is actually up 13,935 members…and the increase in membership among new teachers is particularly encouraging.”
Milbank quotes Lily Eskelsen-Garcia, the president of the National Education Association, CONTINUE READING: Koch Brothers Plan New Scheme Fully to Privatize American Education—at Public Expense | janresseger
