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Saturday, July 14, 2018

AFT President Randi Weingarten on The US Supreme Court Janus Decision

Weingarten rallying in New York City to protest the Supreme Court’s Janus decision, June 27. Photo: Professional Staff Congress


07/01/2018

#Union

by Randi Weingarten
Stamping out unions has long been the aim of many wealthy conservatives, because it’s easier for them to win elections, maintain economic dominance, and disempower workers when individuals can’t collectively improve their lives through the strength and solidarity of a union.
Janus’ supporters argued that the “fair share” fees(link is external)nonmembers pay for union representation violate their First Amendment rights, even though workers have the right not to join a union or pay for any of the union’s political work. Justice Elena Kagan dismissed the majority’s opinion as “weaponizing the First Amendment,” noting that the same argument was raised—and unanimously rejected—41 years ago in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, a precedent the Supreme Court has upheld six times. With this reversal, public employees who benefit from a collective bargaining agreement but choose not to join the union can opt to be “free riders” and not contribute anything for the benefits they receive, while the union must still represent them.
While right-wing groups are mobilizing and spending many millions of dollars to “defund and defang”(link is external) unions by attempting to pick off our members, people are sticking with the union. The misleadingly named Freedom Foundation contacted the 34,000 members of United Teachers Los Angeles, urging them to drop their memberships. Exactly one person did. Union leaders across the country have told me that they got calls after the Janus decision—not from people who wanted to drop, but from those who wanted to join or recommit.
Workers are sticking with their unions because unions are still the best vehicle working people have to make a difference in their lives and their workplaces. Unions negotiate everything from manageable class sizes to safety equipment for emergency personnel. Workers covered by a union(link is external) contract earn 13.2 percent more on average than nonunion workers, and they are more likely to have health insurance, paid leave and retirement benefits. As the recent teacher walkouts showed, the states where union density is the lowest have sharply cut back spending(link is external) and investment in public education. Teachers, firefighters, nurses and other public employees nationwide are signing recommitments to their unions, because they know that unions make possible what is impossible for individuals to accomplish on their own.
The public gets it, too. Even in our hugely polarized country, polling shows that people support teachers unions and agree that teachers aren’t paid enough(link is external).
Linda Greenhouse, the Pulitzer Prize-winning, longtime Supreme Court observer, recently wrote that the court’s “attack on public employee unions has little to do with the Constitution and a whole lot to do with politics(link is external).” Indeed, the right wing of the Supreme Court is going well beyond its charge to interpret the Constitution. With the reliably conservative vote(link is external) of the newest justice, Neil Gorsuch, the Supreme Court is transforming from an impartial protector of constitutional liberties and minority rights to an activist, partisan champion of the powerful and the political right—which is exactly how a web of right-wing, dark-money groups planned it.
Gorsuch ascended to the high court after Senate Republicans stonewalled President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, for 293 days, riding out the clock until Donald Trump took office. The conservative Judicial Crisis Network alone spent millions to pressure the Senate to oppose Garland’s(link is external)confirmation and then to support Gorsuch. JCN’s primary funder is the Wellspring Committee(link is external), a right-wing group based in Virginia that also supported Illinois Policy Action, a conservative organization that represented the plaintiff in Janus v. AFSCME—in which Gorsuch just cast the decisive vote.
The court this term has ruled to allow states to purge eligible voters(link is external) from their rolls, uphold Trump’s immigration ban(link is external)and protect employers(link is external) from class-action lawsuits by workers with grievances. Sounds more like a legislative agenda than a judicial docket of the highest court of the land. And that is why we’re already seeing a firestorm of protest in the wake of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s announced retirement.
Janus poses a challenge for public sector unions, one we have been preparing for. But it presents great opportunities as well, as unions have re-engaged with our members. The day of the Janus decision, AFT nurses in Ohio won a contract that created safe staffing levels, and 2,400 faculty in Oregon voted to join the AFT. Union members will continue to care, fight, show up and vote—to achieve together what individuals cannot do alone. Don’t count us out.

Sunday, July 8, 2018

Federal Court Judge in Michigan Rules That Kids Have No Right To An Education of Any Quality

  • Photo by Doug Coombe
  • Jamarria Hall, plaintiff in the literacy rights lawsuit dismissed on Friday.

U.S. Court: Detroit students have no right to access to literacy

https://m.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2018/07/02/us-court-detroit-students-have-no-right-to-access-to-literacy

 
On Friday, dumped out with the least desirable news of the week came word that a lawsuit arguing that Detroit students were being denied an education had been dismissed. 

Perhaps you remember the case. MT presented a cover story about it last year. With the help of a public interest law firm, a handful of Detroit students charged in federal court that educational officials in Michigan — including Gov. Rick Snyder — denied them access to an education of any quality.

The lawsuit took pains to illustrate how Detroit's schools — run under a state-appointed emergency manager — were a welter of dysfunction: overcrowded classrooms, lack of textbooks and basic materials, unqualified staff, leaking roofs, broken windows, black mold, contaminated drinking water, rodents, no pens, no paper, no toilet paper, and unsafe temperatures that had classes canceled due to 90-degree heat or classrooms so cold students could see their breath.

At times, without teachers or instructional materials, students were simply herded into rooms and asked to watch videos. One student claimed to have learned all the words to the film Frozen in high school. The lawsuit even mentions one eighth grade student who "taught" a seventh and eighth grade math class for a month because no teacher could be found. 

We had described such teaching methods as a sort of "throw a book at them and hope they learn something" method of education — only without the book to throw. Student cannot be expected to learn when they are simply "warehoused for seven hours a day" in "an unsafe, degrading, and chaotic environment" that is a school "in name only." It is hardly surprising that, at the plaintiff's schools, which serve almost exclusively low-income children of color, almost 99 percent of the students are unable to achieve proficiency in state-mandated subjects.

Last year, the state moved for dismissal, arguing that the 14th Amendment contains no reference to literacy. 

Then, last week, U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy III agreed with the state.

Literacy is important, the judge noted. But students enjoy no right to access to being taught literacy. All the state has to do is make sure schools run. If they are unable to educate their students, that's a shame, but court rulings have not established that "access to literacy" is "a fundamental right."

At the close of last year's story, one of the plaintiffs in the case, Jamarria Hall, had reflected on his experiences at Detroit's Osborn High School and described the institution as a "crab barrel" — where you can't escape because you keep getting pulled, or pushed, back in.

He had said the state was one of those forces pushing any crabs who'd escape back in. "'Cause, starting out, they're the ones at the top of the barrel."

Apparently, we may add the U.S. government to those pushing crabs back in their barrel.
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Honestly,

Deidre Hammon
Senior Advocate
CSD Children's Advocacy Project
Reno NV 89502
775.826.4441
775.544.9338