The New Left and Unions

The recent push to fire whole schools when they are failing and the claims that it is the Left or Liberals which are defending the teachers and tenure rules which prevent replacing incompetent teachers doesn't really conform to history as I recall it.

The New Left that came into being with the Vietnam War was anti-union. They were disturbed that the construction unions kept blacks out of their unions by various devices and opposed the teachers unions by pushing "community control," which often led to the firing of white teachers as in some Brooklyn, NY school districts. I believe this laid the foundation for supporting
the Charter School movement by "liberals" such as Obama and Arnie Duncan.

Also many unions had purged their left wing and communist members and supported the Anti-communist unions that were set up to further American hegemony throughout the world. This gave the New Left even more reason to be anti-union.

I have always felt that it would be better to work inside of unions to achieve a more humane society. In fact my own union, the PSC has progressive leadership and works for peace and Justice. Educating union members as to their real enemies is the real task of Progressives, Without a progressive labor movement "change" will invariably mean even more power for corporations.