Building a Popular Movement: We are in this together

Day 1 of the Wisconsin People’s Assembly

Tonight I attended two panel discussions that were part of the Wisconsin People’s Assembly. This event was organized by Wisconsin Wave and Wisconsin Resists. It also included participants from many other organizations. Wisconsin Wave is a force opposed to “corporatization and austerity, for democracy and shared prosperity for all.” This is a 2 day event in Madison, Wisconsin that is bringing together Wisconsinites from all walks of life to discuss the Wisconsin movement, learn from each other, and plan for what’s next.

I tweeted a-ha moments during the panels, but I’d like to reflect a little further.

Building a Popular Movement

(panelists included Rep. Spencer Black, Nii Adjatey, Erika Wolf, Kabzuag Vaj, Monica Adams, Tina Trevino)

This panel included speakers that have all been involved the Wisconsin movement lately, but had previously been organizing around many different issues.

All of the speakers shared their backgrounds in organizing, what they have seen or learned over the past 6 weeks, and what they see as essentials to building a popular movement. Adams and Trevino were both very involved in the capitol occupation. Trevino shared that her a-ha moment was to remember where the power really comes from. It doesn’t come from certain organizations claiming to organize this or that large event. It comes from the people. We really need to bring everyone to the table.

A common theme was that we need to truly include people and create a united front. Vaj said that we need to go beyond saying “people of color should be here.” We need to build real, long, lasting relationships.

We should acknowledge that while these cuts and unions busting are “attacks on the middle class,” they will harm the poor, people of color, non-English speaker, and others far more.

It can’t be just about unions and workers rights. It can’t be just about recalls and making sure we get out the vote. People of color know that they have to look at alternatives to the systems that have continued to fail them. Are any of the candidates that run in opposition to recalled senators really going to be on the side of the people and the poor, not just the “middle class”? We also need to know that people that are fighting for survival – food, healthcare, safety, etc. – are not going to have working on recalls be their priority.

We need to get past any us vs. them. We need to make an effort to team with others and make it a broad campaign. Together, no one loses. This is our great opportunity!

WI People’s Assembly Day 1

Tonight I attended two panel discussions that were part of the Wisconsin People’s Assembly . This event was organized by Wisconsin Wave and Wisconsin Resists. It also included participants from many other organizations. Wisconsin Wave is a force opposed to “corporatization and austerity, for democracy and shared prosperity for all.” This is a 2 day event in Madison, Wisconsin that is bringing together Wisconsinites from all walks of life to discuss the Wisconsin movement, learn from each other, and plan for what’s next.

I tweeted a-ha moments during the panels, but I’d like to reflect a little further.

UNDERSTANDING AUSTERITY: Wisconsin in a global perspective

(Panelists included Phil Gasper, Stefania Sani, Steve Horn, Tony Schultz, Yedda Ligocki, and Ben Manski)

This discussion started with some of the history of “austerity” in our country and the idea of “trickle down economics” by Phil Gaspers. He concisely stated a fear I’ve had in the back of my head. We have been seeing continued attacks on social programs since Reagan (?). These attacks hit the poorest citizens the hardest. At the same time, our government is providing tax breaks to the wealthiest people and corporations. They say this is necessary to solve the deficit and in order to grown our economy and create jobs. This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. This will not create jobs. It will, however, make people more and more desperate and therefore be easier and easier to bust unions and drive down wages allowing corporations to increase profits. This is obvious in the Wisconsin union battle. When we fight back, some have liked to remind us that there are plenty of unemployed people who would love to have our jobs and our benefits.

Tony Schultz, a farmer in Athens, Wisconsin also spoke. He is a member of Wisconsin Farmer’s Union and Family Farm Defenders. He is a powerful speaker who does a great job of connecting all the issues. He spoke about the growth of huge corporate farms and how these have wiped out many small family farms in Wisconsin. On a positive note, he sees hope in the future of small family farms. He’s seen some able to prosper by selling directly to people through Farmer’s Markets and CSAs! By the way, we have a GREAT farmer’s market here in Madison. It is “the largest producer-only” farmer’s market in the country. I was inspired when earlier in the day Schultz spoke about all of the organizing going on in his small, rural area to fight the budget cuts. He said that if the cuts to public education go through as currently planned, the district would lose 22 teachers. They would not longer have AP classes, foreign language, Agriculture programs, and others. Students graduating from this high school would not be able to graduate with credits needed to go to college since foreign language is almost always a requirement.

When Ben Manski introduced the next speaker he said something like,”they first squeeze us and then impose a corporatization agenda upon us. Nowhere is this more evident right now then in what is happening with our public schools.”

Yedda Ligocki is a Social Studies teacher in Montello, Wisconsin. She spoke about her school district already struggles and has had to make many cuts and they have no more “unessentials” that they can cut. Teachers are already paying out of their own pockets for basic materials such as tissues and pencils. More and more students are living below poverty. On top of the proposed budget cuts, SB22 proposes to expand charter schools in Wisconsin. This will also take money away from public schools. In a snapshot, SB22 creates a charter school authorizing board. This board contains 6 people that are appointed – 2 by the governor and 2 by each of the Fitzgerald brothers. This board would oversee 2B Charter Schools. These charter schools are independent charter schools that are not affiliated with a school district. These charter schools could be started by non-profit organizations. They may or may not have the best interest of students in mind. My biggest objection to these specific type of charter schools is that they remove the democratic process. There is not an elected school board. There are many other problems with expanding charter schools without careful thought and meaningful input of educators, students, parents, and the community. That, however, is another blog.

 

Scenes from #wiunion Protests April 2, 2011

This gallery contains 25 photos.

Bureaucratic solutions to education

“Bureaucratic solutions to problems of practice will always fail because effective teaching is not routine, students are not passive, and questions of practice are not simple, predictable, or standardized. Consequently, instructional decisions cannot be formulated on high then packaged and handed down to teachers.”

– Linda Darling-Hammond from her award-winning book, The Right to Learn

 

More to come on this…

You can take our unions, but not our unity!

For the National Day of blogging “Why Teachers Like Us Need Unions” http://www.edusolidarity.org

DISCLAIMER: This blog was written quickly, right before bedtime, after one of “those” days. Please know that I did not edit my work.

Teaching in Wisconsin, over the past 5 weeks or so, I have witnessed something amazing. Also, I have heard and read many eloquent words about why we need unions and how they are good for our public school systems. I thought that I wouldn’t have anything to add. Everything has already been said so well… and it didn’t seemed to matter – at least to our governor.

I do have some unique experiences however. I have worked in schools in urban areas and suburban areas, in great quality schools and very poor quality schools, in quiet, relatively monocultural neighborhoods, and dangerous neighborhoods where announcements were made at the end of the day that “students should walk straight home without stopping” because bullets were flying in the neighborhood.  I fully understand the desire to fix our failing schools. I am skeptical, however, of politicians trying to change our school systems.

Why do I support unions? I met teachers in Oakland, California who lost their jobs for participating in the political process of trying to improve the school system, especially for urban students of color.

I am only in my fourth year of teaching. To be totally honest, I never much thought that unions were necessary until we’d just about lost ours. I don’t think this is uncommon among younger teachers – and younger workers in general. We had an apathetic belief that unions were no longer necessary – that fights had been won and were no longer relevant. I didn’t know how precarious our rights were.

There are many reasons teachers need to be in unions. See the picture I’ve posted about what collective bargaining means to teachers. Our unions quickly conceded on the issue of contributing to pensions and healthcare. None of us as teachers were happy about that. I remember talking a couple months ago with a coworker about how our Governor-elect wanted us to contribute more to our pensions. Our response was “Well, we’d better get paid more then.” We don’t go into the job for the money, but we do appreciate the decent benefits that offset the lack of pay for the skills, education, and job performance we exhibit.

The most important reason teachers need unions is so that we have a voice in education. This is especially important at this time with increasing charters and other routes to privatization, testing, and absurd accountability measures and unfunded mandates. Even if this bill becomes a law, we will still have our unions. We will not stop unionizing and fighting for what’s right in public education. What’s right is that people who are directly involved – teachers, students, and parents – be the ones who decide how education will look in their community.