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AFT’s Weingarten Rallies MTD Board With Solidarity Successes

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MTD President Michael Sacco lifts AFT President Randi Weingarten’s arm in triumph following her address to the MTD Executive Board.

Recalling how labor solidarity decades ago insured the viability of her own local union, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten told the MTD Executive Board that that same cohesiveness will carry the battle to preserve the Jones Act just as it won the recent strike for West Virginia teachers.

Weingarten kept the board members and guest enthralled as the final speaker for the March 8-9 meeting near Orlando. Not only did she address the two issues above, she also spoke about the most recent attack on public sector unions and relief operations in Puerto Rico.

Gesturing toward MTD President Michael Sacco, who also serves as president of the Seafarers Union, Weingarten described him as a mentor and someone she counts on. She thanked the SIU for its longtime support of the New York-based United Federation of Teachers (UFT), where Weingarten was the president for 12 years.

The UFT “will never, ever forget that we got our start and our help – every time there was a big issue – from the mighty Seafarers in New York,” she stated.

Weingarten said that just as the SIU and other unions showed support for the Teachers in years past, the AFT, UFT and others now are carrying a pro-Jones Act message at every opportunity. When the Jones Act came under attack after Hurricane Maria, she learned about the law and equated it in part with prevailing-wage statutes, which help ensure fair compensation for workers.

“Forget about the national security issues (for a minute),” Weingarten said. “So, the moment we have an emergency, what you want to do is take the prevailing wage away from workers?”

Weingarten has carried this message to elected officials and others during her many trips to Puerto Rico deliver aid and comfort to her union members on the island.

Next, she spoke about Janus v. AFSCME, a case that figures to harm public sector union members as well America’s working families. In February, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case. Pushed by anti-union forces, it aims to ban unions from collecting dues or agency fees from all state and local workers, ostensibly because it would violate the workers’ First Amendment rights.

Anti-union groups recruited Mark Janus, a dissenter in an AFSCME-represented workplace, to say that by the very act of collecting the money, the union – through state action – forces him to support political stands he disagrees with.

The court’s ruling is expected in June. Most pundits believe it will go against organized labor and workers’ rights.

“The right wing is just trying to eliminate public sector unions,” Weingarten said. “We used to say this is the case where they were trying to eliminate fair-share dues. But after hearing the argument, it’s clear. They just want to eliminate public-sector unions, and weaponize the First Amendment to do it.”

Still discussing the Janus case and the need for union representation, she added, “Most individuals are not born with silver spoons in their mouth. Most of us only have power collectively, through all of us – through the union. Through our contracts, through our willingness to strike. But it’s through the union that we have that power. The Court doesn’t want working people to have that power. That’s the fight we’re in.”

Weingarten said the Labor Movement, in addition to battling in court, also is re-educating rank-and-file members and fighting in the court of public opinion. As part of that outreach, the AFT cited a recent, unofficial report from West Virginia. As she explained, the head of the state senate “broke down and cried in his caucus [one] night, so much so that his colleagues thought he was having a heart attack. He had made a deal with the Koch brothers and Americans for Prosperity to provide money for his campaign, in return for a promise to break the union. He was told that if he could break us here, they could do it anywhere. When he realized that he could not, and he was losing, he literally broke down in tears and caved to the five percent (wage increase). That’s what they’re doing.”

She asked why President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court never got so much as a hearing, then answered: “Because this group of people – Americans for Prosperity – told every Republican senator that if you even have a meeting with this man, they will primary you. That’s the level of what’s going on against us. And as soon as the case [is decided], there’s going to be these flyers going to our members that say …’you want a raise? Give up your union dues.’ We know – we’ve seen them already.”

Nevertheless, the nine-day strike in West Virginia proved that solidarity, grassroots mobilization and sharing the union message all work. While much of the press coverage focused on wages, the teachers and their allies also defeated an expansion of charter schools, killed a proposal to eliminate seniority, and scuttled a so-called paycheck-protection bill (aimed at weakening unions by taking away their right to deduct dues through payroll collection).

“What’s happening in my union is cathartic, and that’s part of why you saw what happened in West Virginia,” Weingarten said. “Probably for the first time in a very long time, our leadership gets it, and the members get it, and people are talking to and with one another like they haven’t since when we were started – about our aspirations, about our dreams, about how we get their collectively. Whether it is fighting for health care so you’re not one illness away from bankruptcy; whether it’s fighting for good schools; whether it’s fighting for a voice at work; whether it’s fighting for a raise of secure retirement….”

When the strike was won, at a rally at the state capitol, “you saw people who probably never stood up before,” she added. “Most of them weren’t teaching the last time there was a school strike, in 1990. They felt what union means: the respect, the dignity that you get when people stay together in a cause that is righteous and a cause that the county and the country respected – for the dignity of work, getting fair pay. That’s the lesson we taught the world with the West Virginia strike – a lesson you’ve been teaching people forever.”

Turning to Puerto Rico, she commended maritime labor and Jones Act operators for all of their relief efforts, including the delivery of needed water filters through the AFT-led and union-supported Operation Agua..

She pointed out, “We realized this was a problem and we had to solve it. By Christmas, every single child in every single public school had safe, reliable drinking water because of the work we did together. That’s union, too.”

Weingarten concluded, “What unions do for our country is we fight for aspirations. Yes, we fight the things that are wrong – and we annoy people because of it. But we fight for aspiration. We fight for values. We fight for working families to be able to have a better life, and I will never, ever apologize for that.”

 

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