Counterspin, a regular weekly radio program by the media watchdog FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), had a good interview in their most recent episode regarding the West Virginia teachers strike (‘A Remarkable Victory for the Labor Movement’).
Mike Elk is senior labor reporter and founder of Payday Report, and also writes for the Guardian. He has a very optimistic assessment of what the West Virginia strike has meant for the rest of the labor movement.
You can listen to the program or use the link above to read the transcript.
Mike Elk: “What West Virginia showed was that, hey, the law can be against you and you can still win.”
So there’s been all this alarmist rhetoric that, “Oh, unions are going to go under, blah blah blah.” When, in the South, you’ve had unions that don’t have collective bargaining rights, that don’t even have dues checkoff at all, that are in right-to-work states—that have been winning victories for decades. And I think what West Virginia showed was that, hey, the law can be against you and you can still win. So it was a real shot of energy to the labor movement in that way.
I also think it was really an expression of #MeToo in the workplace. I don’t think this has been covered as much, but nationally, about 79 percent of teachers are women. One of the big issues that really upset a lot of women in this struggle for a contract was that, in order to get $500 a year off of your health insurance cost, you had to participate in a wellness program where you had to wear a Fitbit that monitored your every move. A lot of women really objected to this, that this was invasive, that this was invading women’s bodies, that this was the male state legislature refusing to give a pay raise, and wanting to do this terribly invasive thing.
And so I think this is also a big victory for the #MeToo movement in the workplace, and could inspire other types of public-sector strikes. Already, Pittsburgh teachers were in union talks while the West Virginia strike was going on, and Pittsburgh is about 45 minutes from West Virginia. We share a lot of the same media market. And so last week, last Monday, they voted to strike. And what winded up happening was they voted to strike on Monday, and gave notice they would go out on Friday. By that Wednesday, the school district folded and gave them everything they wanted.
So it was already showing an effect here in Pittsburgh, and now today in Oklahoma, the teachers union announced there that they were going to go out on strike on April 2.
So how far this thing goes is really unclear, but it’s been a long time since the labor movement had a victory this big, on this big of a scale, a mass walkout over an entire state. And even though they didn’t get everything they wanted with health insurance plans, they put themselves in a position where they gained leverage and support. So they were able to get a 5 percent pay raise, not just for teachers, but for all public employees, which helped them out in terms of gaining more public support, because initially that wasn’t on the table at all. The other public employees were going to get 2 percent less.
They got a 19-month freeze to all out-of-pocket healthcare costs, which is a big victory. And then they got set up a taskforce to study how to fix the state health insurance program. It’s supposed to have a report presented by October, and this taskforce will have many members of the teachers union on it.
And it’s important that that’s coming in October, because in October, the state legislature comes back into session, and then in November, there are legislative elections. So if no action is taken, it really puts the issue front and center; it puts the union in a position to fight another day, rather than going on a multi-week strike, where they might lose support.
You know, a strike is a very difficult thing to maintain, and these teachers did a great job of doing community outreach, of setting up daycares, of setting up lunch programs, making sure that children were provided for during the strike, and keeping public support on their side. So it’s really a remarkable victory for the labor movement.
There’s plenty more. Definitely worth reading or listening.
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I lived in West Virginia, and worked as an underground coal miner, for almost 10 years. The first point that everyone (except an article in the Gaurdian) misses, is that teachers there have no collective bargaining rights and thus no union. The article assumes they did. This has 2 effects. Absent a contract there is little the employer can do to counter a strike, like a punitive injunction against a union. The downside is there is no negotiating, just demands and mass action. And you need negotiation to worrk out benefits. Incidentally Hawaii Public Employee Unions can’t negotiate or arbitrate around health insurance, which leads to the same nonsense here. Teachers, and most public employees pay 35 percent of their insurance premiums. And that was the core of the objection to the health plans there. Not just the fitbit. The second thing is the historic working class tradition in WV. The teachers wore red bandanas, the same thing union miners wore in the armed march on Logan County where the fought a week long battle with coal operators private militia. I could go on but what this win reflects is the hidden network of workers that organize in West Virginia. It was a source of wildcat strikes in Coal. Now its amped by social media.