AUT: Detroit teachers strike

[Montyneill@xxxxxxx]

I think this article, on the situation of the Detroit teachers as they go on
strike, in the context of various other factors in Detroit, is well worth a
read. There is an into to the piece by Wayne, then the piece by Rich. An
email address that should lead to access to continuing information is at the
end. - Monty Neill
------
Below is an analysis (long) of the conditions in Detroit that have lead to
the impeding strike of members of the DFT.

If you are concerned about how union bosses are undercutting the rank and
file; the corporate takeover of public schools; and/or the material decay
of cities please take the time to read this analysis.

The Rouge Forum is a group of educators, students, and parents seeking a
democratic society. We are concerned about questions like these: How can we
teach against racism, national chauvinism and sexism in an increasingly
authoritarian and undemocratic society? How can we gain enough real power
to keep our ideals and still teach--or learn? Whose interests shall school
serve in a society that is ever more unequal? We are both research and
action oriented. We want to learn about equality, democracy and social
justice as we simultaneously struggle to bring into practice our present
understanding of  what these are. We seek to build a caring inclusive
community which understands that an injury to one is an injury to all. At
the same time, our caring community is going to need to deal decisively
with an opposition that is  sometimes ruthless.

Wayne

http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/rouge_forum/
__________________________________

A Rouge Forum Broadside
Detroit Teachers Vote to Strike
Shut Down the Schools-and the Casino-Spread the Strike!
by Rich Gibson, Wayne State University


    Around 2000 of the 3000 teachers attending a meeting of the Detroit
Federation of Teachers voted  to strike to day, August 30. There are around
8000 teachers in the school system. A huge "School Opening Rally" scheduled
for Tuesday, was cancelled. The strike vote flies in the face of a harsh
state law, untested to date, that levies fines against teachers and their
union, and which proposes jail sentences under some circumstances. The
strike vote also shatters the appearance of school reform in the city,
which has spent about 100 million dollars refurbishing decrepit schools
this summer, a reform directed by seven member school board appointed by
the Governor and Detroit's Mayor. The board seized the city's schools which
serve about 180,000 children. The elected school board was abolished in
1999. The new board is primarily made up of representatives of industry,
banks, and casinos, none of whom has experience as a school worker.

    Significantly, the strike vote also is a clear rejection of the
Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) leadership which asked the membership
to approve a ten-day extension of the contract, promising that the leaders
had achieved success on many key issues. In fact, the DFT sent out a press
release the evening before the vote which said the members had voted to
return to work. The repudiation of the leadership by the rank and file, by
at least a two-to-one margin, continues a trend inside teacher unions which
reached a high mark in 1998, when the membership of the National Education
Association, with more than two million members, by far that largest union
in the U.S., defeated by a 60-40% vote a leadership generated proposal to
merge with the smaller, urban-based AFT-and to virtually adopt the AFT's
undemocratic structure.

    The union members met today at Cobo Hall, a huge convention center
downtown. The rank and file members had heard radio reports the night
before indicating that John Elliot, longtime president of the DFT, had
already agreed to a ten-day contract extension. Elliot did nothing to allay
that concern. Instead, Elliot began the meeting my introducing a lawyer,
who started to outline the many sanctions government could levy against the
union and educators in the case of a strike. Early on, teachers began to
shout at her. She said, "And I thought teachers were supposed to be models
of being polite!" Elliot then intervened on her behalf, "I can see why many
of you have discipline problems in your classrooms. You behave like your
kids." This set off new rounds of shouting-and demands for a division of
the body, not a voice vote, as teachers shouted that Elliot had
"miscounted" in the past. One teacher said later, "We are sick of them
talking down to us."

    The leadership circulated an outline of the results of the last two
months' of bargaining. Included in the section of items completed was an
agreement to give away seniority as a key factor in transfers, referring
the question to a site-based management committee. Class size limits,
promised publicly by both the new board and the DFT leaders, are merely
referred to a committee for "review and study." The DFT agreed on a
proposal which indicates that if teachers use more than eight of their
fifteen days of sick time, they will not get salary increases the following
year.  The agreement includes a merit pay section, which links pay
increases to student performance on standardized tests and principal
evaluations. Still on the table, with no agreement, are: pay, fringes like
health benefits, longevity, duty periods, time off for union
representatives, sick bank accrual. There was no discussion in the meeting
as to which section particularly annoy educators, so the leadership is at a
loss as to the direction to take.

    Indeed, in a press conference this afternoon, hours after the mass
meeting and following a caucus of the top union leadership, DFT's Elliot
blamed the vote on a "militant minority who always wanted to strike, and
who were able to get people to the meeting today."  In the same press
conference, board Superintendent David Adamany, the former president of
Wayne State University, urged teachers to start school on Tuesday, saying,
"This strike is against the law. It is a matter of individual conscience, a
decision for each teacher. It hurts the massive reform effort that is
demonstrated by our success in repairing the schools. Adamany earlier had
outlined three goals for starting the school year, other than the building
repairs: Each child in a uniform, the arrest of parents of truant kids, and
each teacher on the same page of the same text, each day. He said, further,
"If this is a rejection of what we have already agreed to, which we must
have, we are all in serious trouble." Adamany told parents to keep their
children home, and said he would not request state help in invoking the law
until he had a further chance to bargain.

    The strike vote could have important implications. In the context
of the labor movement, it could be the harbinger of things to come in
Detroit, and perhaps around the U.S. In Detroit, the strike could,
conceivably, spread. Professors at Wayne State University, the 35,000
student urban college serving the metropolitan area, may take a strike vote
next week. Like the DFT, they are members of the AFT. In addition, later in
September, the UAW will target an auto company, probably Chrysler, for a
strike. In the context of the education community, the strike could inspire
action elsewhere, like Chicago, where the union leadership has taken
stances similar to the DFT leadership. NPR, this afternoon, carried a
statement from a dissident DFT member calling for a general strike in
Detroit. Following the bitter loss of the Detroit newspaper strike,
feelings run strong in metro-Detroit. The DFT, however, has no plans to
radiate the strike.

    However, there are other factors to consider. The level of
opposition from management and government is a serious concern. While the
size of the DFT makes it a big elephant among teacher unions, those arrayed
on management's side are not merely tough bargainers, they are ideologues
who have long fought to destroy unions. The state Governor, John Engler,
who harbors vice-presidential ambitions, struggled for most of his
political life to end what he sees as a union strangle hold on the state.
His efforts, coupled with the bungling of the Michigan Education
Association, led to the passage of the law outlawing teacher strikes, as
well as laws restructuring the tax system to shift the burden of education
costs away from corporations and onto working and poor people. One of his
goals for 1999-2000 has been to end the agency shop clauses in teacher
contracts, shifting that sector of the Michigan work force to a
right-to-work state. Engler is known as a ruthless and cruel opponent.
There is no question that his attention is focused on Detroit teachers.

    David Adamany, the DPS Superintendent, made a reputation at Wayne
State attacking the union-to the extent that he was finally forced to
resign after more than ten years on the job-following a no-confidence vote
from the faculty. Adamany was skillful at dealing with capital
improvements, Wayne State building projects grew and prospered in the
middle of a city in utter collapse. But, like Engler, he is seen as
vindictive and vengeful-and hot-tempered. He is well- known for taking
decisive action against anyone who tried to oppose him. Adamany, too, has
long battled to change public education to a corporate model. At Wayne
State, he initiated a program for freshmen and sophomores that put them on
the same page of the same book-teacher to teacher-a move the faculty fought
every year.  Adamany was expected to "clean house." But he has only been
able to clean buildings. He told the district principals, in a spring
meeting, that he would like to fire about _ of them for "obvious
incompetence.". To date, none are fired. The district's personnel office is
notorious. Teachers routinely do not get paid for months on end. Job
applicants are treated like supplicants, ordered to pay steep fees to apply
for a job. Adamany has not moved to change the personnel personnel either.

    He has considerable teacher and parent opposition, some of it
taking root in his arrogance. In a summer meeting with teachers, he was
challenged about what he would do as an educator facing disruptive
students. "I would just put down my chalk and refuse to teach." Openly gay,
at the board meeting following his appointment, Adamany was met by a
church-based group of parents chanting, "He's gay-not with my kids!" and
demanding his removal.

    Adamany claimed tonight that he was worried that a strike might
propel parents into charter schools and support for a voucher amendment
that will be on the Michigan ballot soon. But Adamany, as president of
Wayne State, opened the first charter school in the state, and caused the
dismissal of the dean of the college of education who refused to support
him. Last year, the charter school scored lowest in the state on
standardized exams. Still, hundreds of parents wait in line to enroll their
kids in the school each fall.

    The chairman of what is known as the "Takeover Board" is Freeman
Hendrix, a mayoral aide who opened the first public meeting of the new
board by inciting the two hundred of attending to assault students and
parents who had come to protest the seizure of the school system. Hendrix,
who lives in the city but whose children attend Catholic Schools, shouted
at the cops, "Throw them out and arrest them.  Now, Now, Now," repeatedly
over a public address system designed to drown out any sound of
dissension." His approach continued week after week, culminating in the
police beating of an older woman in the parking lot of a Detroit high
school. He halted only when he was clearly threatened by a group of men who
attended the next meeting, telling him he had caused beatings for the last
time and offering him a "taste of pain."  Hendrix has mayoral
aspirations-and Mayor Dennis Archer has hinted he hopes to leave the city
to become the Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Archer, in the
press conference, urged teachers to report to work on Tuesday.
    Material conditions might suggest a prudent course for management:
combining threats about the law, perhaps even an injunction, with rewards
for returning to work, bargaining behind closed doors with the union
leadership, a hurried meeting in which pro-contract votes are mustered and
counted, a back to work order, and a new opening of the schools. But the
personalities of the players are significant, and the people involved on
the management side have a history of hot-headed behavior. These are not
people accustomed to negotiations, the cynical give and take of corrupt
union bargaining. The management side is composed of people who see the key
issues, like merit pay, the end of seniority, control of the curriculum,
etc., as matters of principle.

    Of course, there is a lot at stake for them. The seizure of the
Detroit public schools by the rich comes at a critical juncture in the
history of the city and the state. Detroit today is third world. Key city
streets look like tank traps. Electrical service is routinely interrupted
for city and nearby suburban residents, for up to two weeks at a time.
Public transportation is nonexistent in the Motor City. Vaccination rates
of the city children run about 35%, while TB continues to be a force in
some areas of the city. The day the first casino opened, the county had to
close 29 lakes, due to ecoli poisoning. The lake inspectors were laid off
days later. The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists 35 major layoffs of more
than 100 people so far this year. Even so, the Wall Street Journal declared
Detroit on the "comeback trail, " in mid-August. Housing prices are up for
the first time in decades.

    Thirty-five of the city's police force were indicted for drug
related crimes this year. The former chief of police, of a department with
a long history of corruption, is now serving time in Milan Federal Prison,
just west of Detroit. The police department has settled millions in
liability suits in the last few years-making them a hated entity once
again. The two officers who killed Malice Green, in a famous assassination,
appear to be about to escape serious punishment. The murder rate is up,
about 25%. Robberies, a rate determined by arrests made by a crooked police
department, are down.

    The auditor of the former school board, in admitting that she could
not count for up to three million dollars of board funds, finally admitted
that she had not been the auditor at Northwest Airlines-she was a clerk.
After she resigned, she bought one of the most fashionable restaurants in
Detroit. Once known as the Homeowner's City, with more single family homes
per- capita than any other, the city has bulldozed huge plots of land where
housing once stood-to the point that residents walking just a mile from the
city center commonly kick up pheasants who have moved into the vacant
fields. While unemployment levels in the city are two to three times those
of the rest of the state, the state as a whole is experiencing remarkable
growth and prosperity-as is the U.S. The city school system is 90% black.
Prominent sociologists recognize Detroit as the most racially segregated
city in the U.S. Most suburban white people never enter the city, except
perhaps to come and go for Tiger and Red Wings games.

    About five years ago, property values in the city bottomed out. GM,
Ford, and speculators began to buy back what was once theirs-including land
on the priceless river front. Although Detroit residents voted repeatedly
to oppose casinos in the city, the issue was placed on a state- wide ballot
and passed. The mayor promised that the three casinos approved by the
voters would never take up river front space. One $200 million temporary
casino was completed and opened in July-to lines of thousands of working
people cuing in the heat. Two others will open before Y2K. All three
casinos plan more swank permanent structures-on the river front, as the
Mayor recently agreed. The Lions and Tigers are completing new stadiums
downtown as well. When asked where all the poor people who live near the
new entertainment centers will move, an urban planner simply said. "Well, I
certainly hope they leave!" .

    The city is being reclaimed by elites who have no desire for an
integrated, critical, authentic school system. While they recognize the
need for multi-culturalism in their own ranks, they are keen to maintain a
system of segregation among the other classes. The state standardized tests
for school kids measure, solely, parental income and race.  The tests are
used, along with geographic housing choices made by racist parents, to
deepen segregation, not enliven education.

    What elites, led by an organization called "New Detroit," whose
director, Bill Beckham, is the key leader of the Takeover Board, must have
right now is social peace-and that is why they seized the Detroit schools
when they did. They were acutely aware that conditions in Detroit mirrored
conditions in the summer of 1967: hatred for the police, high expectations
contradicted by minimal real-life possibilities, a community acting on
gossip and tabloid TV news since a boycott of the scab papers is still 40%
effective, and contempt for what is traditionally a center of hope-school.
The 1967 uprising, which required military intervention including troops
returned from Vietnam to quell, was a terrible setback for elites
everywhere-and a material boon to local citizens who gained nearly 100,000
jobs within six months of the rebellion. The "Renaissance," of Detroit,
declared thirty years ago but never realized, is now a Ponzi scheme, based
on the faith of wealthy investors believing that their money will not
vanish.

    In order to gain social peace, vital to winning the failed bets of
suburban gamblers taking the chance of entering the city (the photo of one
horrified suburbanite running from an urban insurrection would destroy
downtown investments for a long time to come), elites had to hold out a
believable carrot-schools that work. The wiped out the existing board,
which was traditionally corrupt and incompetent, going back to the 1920's,
and set out on a reform program which sees parents, teachers, and kids as
the source of most of the school's problems-as Adamany's program
demonstrates. Remarkably, the old board had adopted a carbon-copy plan,
days before they were run off. As proof of the old board's political
bankruptcy, only a handful of people protested their removal. The Takeover
Board moved swiftly to smash any potential opposition. Massive police
presence at early meetings drove away many parents and students. They
opened the district treasury to make repairs in schools all across the
district, and succeeded in at least 4/5 of them. Days before school opened,
they flooded radio stations with announcements of a huge "Back to School
Rally" with parents and kids invited to each school. They were also ordered
to attend, and told that anyone not at school the first day would have to
repeat a long registration process. Many this saw as an effort to limit the
potential of a DFT job action by raising parental hopes-and fears.

    There are serious problems inside the DFT. The union leadership has
long been profoundly alienated from the rank and file. The leaders are
widely seen as incompetent and corrupt-on the other side. In midsummer, DFT
president Elliot was asked how many days teachers teach in the school year.
He guessed wrong, by ten days. Elliot has never led a serious job action,
other than a brief strike in 1992, nor have his cohorts. In meetings to
report the results of bargaining for the last two DFT contracts, Elliot
declared voice votes which clearly opposed his positions, to be votes in
favor of a return to work. The staff leadership of the AFT has very, very
close ties to the UAW leaders who systematically sabotaged the rank and
file and community action which could have led to a victory in the
newspaper strike. Now, because they have been so separated from the
members, the leadership has no idea of what it is they must bargain to gain
member ratification-except a clear message from the members that they do
not like what the leaders have already done. Elliot was obviously shocked
by the strike vote, as was Adamany. The union side has no plan for a long
strike.

    Opposition to Elliot, despite his claims and hints about outside
agitators, is really small and not well organized. His perennial opponent,
a high school teacher at the city's most prestigious school, has never been
able to gain more than 40% of the vote in presidential elections, and there
are no indications of extensive opposition organizing. The Trotskyist
National Women's Rights Organizing Committee and the Columbus-based
anarchist Anti-Racist Action group both have a tiny presence; neither could
be considered influential now. In sum, the teacher side has a serious
problem with leadership-and the feelings of the rank and file are hard to
gauge. The DFT did no extensive bargaining survey, asking teachers what
they wanted, before bargaining began.

    While no one has a clear count, it appeared that the meeting today,
consisting of only about 1/3 of Detroit teachers, was heavy with voters
from high schools, typically centers of greater militance. The key to a
successful strike of this size is not the high schools but the elementary
schools, critical to companies and parents as a source of free baby
sitting. High school students can take care of themselves; grade school
students cannot. Without a good base of elementary school educator support,
the strike could unravel.

     No one knows the feelings of the nearly 1,000 teachers the
district hired in special hiring fairs in the summer of 1999. I was not
able to locate a single new teacher on the picket lines this afternoon. NEA
and AFT research clearly says that new young teachers are far less likely
to support union action than their colleagues who were hired in the late
1960's and early 1970's.

    Moreover, the union has nearly no base in the community. No one
organized parents or kids over the long summer vacation.  City schools have
suffered from a bad reputation for years, much of it deserved. The schools
are one of several reasons-the most important being systematized
racism-that the city went from a population of about two million to less
than one million today. About _ of Detroit public schools were built before
1930, about 1/4 before 1920. 83 schools, in the spring, were still heated
by coal furnaces, leading to rates of asthma among staff and children over
70%. Class size is, on paper, often outrageous, over 40, but the district
counts on truancy to offset what would otherwise be a crisis of space. The
DFT has repeatedly taken extra pay for teachers in larger classes, rather
than placing a strict cap on class size, and in this and in many other
instances is seen by community people as a privileged force in their
midst-living well at the expense of community people. Very few teachers
live in the communities where they teach, in fact, only a minority of them
live in Detroit-and fewer still have children in Detroit schools.

    The DFT has another problem: they supported the Takeover Board, and
nearly all of the principles the board adopted, from standardized tests to
harsh discipline to site-based management and a "partnership" between the
union and management. Many people in the community see this as a
partnership against them. The DFT lacks a moral ground for a fight.

    Neither the union nor the Takeover Board has any plan to deal with
the key problem in Detroit's schools: the deep racist poverty that has
overwhelmed the city in the last forty years. As Jean Anyon has shown,
doing school reform without radically changing economic oppression is like
washing the air on one side of a screen door. In this full context,  it is
not possible to address the takeover of the schools as part of the
construction of fascism, on a slow, ugly, day by day pace.

    With no organization, no history of serious battles, no base among
parents, kids, or workers in the community, the DFT leadership appears to
be in big trouble-and they are. But they remain in charge as long as the
mind set of the rank and file and the community remains mired in the narrow
history of unionism--which has historically divided more people than united
them-and as long as the rank and file unconsciously choose to let the
leadership remain in charge. While it is most likely that this strike will
be sold out, there are some clear actions rank and file activists might
take. The crux of this, though, is that the union leadership must be
superceded, and this process begins by declaring and making them
irrelevant-and taking power from them when it is necessary. And the
principles which drive this should be equality and democracy, at every
turn.

    Those who see schools as vehicles for social change-for democracy
and equality-need to move quickly to unite the community and educators
against the wealthy and privileged few who now run the schools, and the
many who follow their directions. This can be achieved, within the confines
of the union, by elevating demands which naturally unite parents, kids, and
school workers-like class size, academic freedom, a more just tax system,
more equitable pay schedules, and integrated inclusive schools. At the same
time, Freedom Schools could be established, schools set up in local
facilities and peoples homes which could take up their own curriculum-like
just who are these people on the school board and why do they act like
this? Or, why is Detroit such a racist city? In other words, they could
teach as many teachers believe they cannot, and both students and teachers
would learn a lot.

    A quick fix, and one is needed to inspire and carry forward the
strike, would be for educators to march on the casino and shut it down-and
keep it shut. The casino is a weak link in the power of elites in Detroit,
the cultural, economic, and social pollution it engenders makes it a clear
target, and suburban gamblers do not want to face angry people as they wait
patiently in line-for the opportunity to lose.

    Longer term, rank and file notables need to assert their leadership
of the strike-by seeking to spread it. This involves appealing to rank and
file members of other unions in the area, especially the militants in the
MEA, who recognize the reality of the old union saw, "An injury to one only
precedes an injury to all." No one should expect genuine support from other
union bigwig, especially those who wrecked the newspaper strike. The UAW
big-cheeses are likely to feel they need to do nothing but plan for their
strike at Chrysler, and Al Gore's election, but there are many UAW members
who see otherwise-and many former UAW members who are now motel clerks who
might be mobilized in support. A General strike in Detroit is unlikely,
especially since it will have to climb over the bodies of the moribund
union bosses, but it is possible.

    In the long run, the crux of the matter is to build an organization
that understands that in order to make serious social change, to fight for
democracy and equality, it is necessary to organize people in new ways-and
to challenge the permanence of capital which today can only offer way,
racism, organized social decay, and jobs to people who look at others and
think, "Sucker." Those of us working in schools, and attacking capitalism,
are right on point. Everything is in place for social change--except the
decision to make it and the understanding of what that is.

    The Rouge Forum is a group of educators, students, and parents
seeking a democratic society. We are concerned about questions like these:
How can we  teach against racism, national chauvinism and sexism in an
increasingly   authoritarian and undemocratic society? How can we gain
enough real power  to keep our ideals and still teach--or learn? Whose
interests shall school serve in a society that is ever more unequal? We are
both research and action oriented. We want to learn about equality,
democracy and social justice as we simultaneously struggle to bring into
practice our present understanding of  what that is. We seek to build a
caring inclusive community which understands that an injury to one is an
injury to all. At the same time, our caring community is going to need to
deal decisively with an opposition that is  sometimes ruthless.

    We hope to demonstrate that the power necessary to win greater
democracy will likely rise out of an organization that unites people in new
ways--across   union boundaries, across community lines, across the fences
of race and sex/gender. We believe that good humor and friendships are a
vital part of  building this kind of organization, as important as
theoretical clarity.    Friendships allow us to understand that action
always reveals errors--the key way we learn.

       There are no dues to join the Rouge Forum. Just email
elethinker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


E. Wayne Ross
SUNY Binghamton

"Most everybody I see knows the truth, but they just don't know that they
know it."                       -Woody Guthrie




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