http://themilitant.com/2018/8220/822001.html
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Vol. 82/No. 20 May 21, 2018
(front page)
Join teachers for May 16 protest in North Carolina!
Teachers, school workers build for Raleigh action
Militant/Diane Shur
Teachers at April 26 news conference in Greensboro, North Carolina,
announcing May 16 march and rally in Raleigh to demand better wages,
work conditions and funds for schools.
BY DIANE SHUR
GREENSBORO, N.C. — The school workers uprising that started in West
Virginia in late February and has since rolled across Kentucky,
Oklahoma, Arizona and Colorado, has hit North Carolina. More than 11,500
teachers have already filed for personal days to march and rally outside
the Capitol in Raleigh at the opening of the state legislative session
May 16.
“13 and Counting” is the headline in the May 8 Raleigh News & Observer —
adding up the number of school districts that have announced they’ll be
closed for the protest. District officials say too many teachers have
marked off to keep the schools open.
They are joining the tens of thousands of teachers, other school workers
and supporters who have protested wages and working conditions, attacks
on pensions, increased health premiums and deteriorating schools.
Guilford County is one of the growing number of counties closing their
schools for lack of teachers May 16. “I think it’s a clear indicator
that teachers are fed up with a lack of funding, a lack of workplace
dignity, a lack of resources,” Todd Warren, a teacher and president of
Guilford County Association of Educators, the main teachers union, told
the media May 7.
The union presented its demands and publicized the action at a press
conference here April 26, attended by teachers, parents and supporters.
They also called for relief for schools that were severely damaged,
along with many homes, when a tornado ripped through the east side of
Greensboro 11 days earlier. They said the damage to the schools could
have been prevented if the buildings had been maintained and renovated.
“We celebrated today when Guilford announced it would close,” Susan
Skinner, who teaches at Swann Middle School here, told the Militant May
7. She is a member of the union and has been active building the May 16
rally. “We’ve talked about how we need to talk to everybody — teachers,
bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians, everybody.”
Skinner said that as they’ve been building the actions, workers have
gotten more confidence and are beginning to broaden the discussion.
“You know, you’re in your classroom, fairly isolated and have little
experience of collective strength,” she said. “Then you see this
movement rolling across the country and what it has achieved.
Discussions are shifting a bit now to what is most important and what it
will actually take to win.”
North Carolina is one of the centers for manufacturing in the U.S., with
substantial automotive and aerospace industries, as well as food
processing, furniture manufacturing and tobacco. Goodyear and
Bridgestone Tire companies, Smithfield Foods, Tyson Farms, Volvo,
Caterpillar and dozens more have thousands of workers in the state. Of
course Walmart is the largest employer.
Workers have been hit hard. Between 2004 and 2006 almost 39,000 workers
lost their jobs as bosses searching for higher profits outsourced the
jobs, devastating the state’s textile and furniture industries.
And, unlike some other states where teacher uprisings have broken out,
North Carolina has a sizable Black population with a history of battles
against racism and police brutality that date back to Radical
Reconstruction. In 1960 students sat down at Woolworths in Greensboro,
helping launch a wave of sit-ins against Jim Crow segregation across the
country.
Today there is an ongoing debate about what to do with still-standing
statues of defenders of slavery in the Civil War. These struggles have
affected the working class as a whole, including the International
Longshoremen’s Association local in Wilmington.
And the legacy and battles around slavery and racism affect the schools.
“People talk a lot about the disparity between the conditions in some
‘whiter’ areas, as opposed to the worse conditions in schools that have
more Black students,” Skinner said.
While the protest takes place in Raleigh, teachers in Greensboro have
organized a food committee to bag lunches and staff distribution points
to feed several hundred students.
Related articles:
Back teachers, join Socialist Workers Party campaign!
Teachers, school workers walk out in Pueblo contract struggle
Education under capitalism is a class question
On the Picket Line
Unions lead fight against racism, for working-class unity
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