http://themilitant.com/2018/8213/821302.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 82/No. 13 April 2, 2018
(front page, editorial)
Join March 28, April 2 school worker protests!
After a decade without a raise and facing ongoing attacks on their
health care, Oklahoma teachers and state workers plan to strike April 2,
with a mass rally that day in Oklahoma City. Arizona teachers fighting
similar conditions have called for a protest at the state Capitol in
Phoenix March 28 from 4 to 7 p.m. Dozens of schools in Kentucky shut
down March 21 as teachers walked out and protested in Frankfort, the
state capital, with more to come.
The nine-day strike by teachers and other school workers in West
Virginia proved that it’s possible to stand up through our unions to the
anti-working-class attacks of the bosses and government and win. Workers
in Oklahoma and elsewhere today point to their example.
The Militant urges workers, youth and the labor movement to join these
fights. Go to Oklahoma or Arizona, stand with the school workers and
meet fellow working-class fighters. Get your union, church group,
community organization and co-workers to send messages of solidarity and
contributions to their strike funds.
In Arizona, teachers have been organizing red T-shirt days, like West
Virginia school workers did. In Oklahoma they are setting up food banks
to make sure no child who depends on school meals will go hungry during
a strike. Doing this, they’re winning allies and building a broader
working-class movement.
The school workers aren’t just fighting for themselves. They’re gaining
self-confidence and pointing a way forward for working people coast to
coast. Their struggles point the way to rebuild a fighting union
movement and organize the unorganized.
These fights grow out of a widespread discussion and debate in the
working class today. They take place in the midst of political
developments around the world that are important for working people —
from Korea to Iran to Brexit to Israel and Palestine.
For decades the bosses and their government have pushed the growing
crisis of their capitalist system onto the backs of working people. We
see it in the spike of drug, suicide and liver disease-caused deaths
that has led to life expectancy falling for the first time in 60 years.
We see it in the closings of hundreds of retail stores, the layoffs of
thousands of workers and speedup on the job, a consequence of the
capitalists’ cutthroat competition. We see it in dairy farmers being
driven off their farms. And we see it in the workers and farmers in
uniform who die or return disfigured from the rulers’ wars abroad.
We stand shoulder to shoulder with the school workers. Members and
supporters of the Socialist Workers Party are using the Militant to tell
the truth about these fights and getting books by revolutionary leaders
into their hands — books that contain valuable lessons for standing up
to the bosses and building a movement to take political power out of
their hands.
See you March 28 and April 2!
Related articles:
Teachers build movement to fight government attacks
School workers mobilize in Oklahoma, Arizona, Kentucky
Idaho silver miners mark one year on strike against Hecla
Toys ‘R’ Us to shut down US stores, put 33,000 workers out on the street
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