Samuel Beckett

WAITING FOR GODOT

By Stephen Wilson

Irish poet & playwright Samuel Beckett

MOSCOW -  The Russian theater company TRAP, under the direction of actor Victor

Mytnikov, recently performed Samuel Beckett's legendary play, 'Waiting

for Godot', in Russian , on June 17, captivating many spectators with

a moving performance where the character of Vladimir was played by

Oleg Baranov , Estragon by Andrei Yaresho and the boy by S. Varlamov.

An old saying warns that : 'Only a fool makes firm predictions in Russia.'

This proverb is certainly vindicated by the recent dramatic World Cup

Football games where many conceited presumptions were turned upside

down. For instance, who would have anticipated Germany playing so badly

and Russia performing well beyond the fans' dreams by two spectacular

victories? Another unexpected but pleasant shock was when fans from

all over the world were treated in such a warm, friendly and hospitable

way. Many expected to be treated roughly, rudely and coldly.

And when you go for a casual walk in the park, almost anything might happen!

I, and a colleague ,decided to go for a walk in Lefortovsky park. We decided

to go through another park and 'just go where our eyes took us'. We ended

up passing by the Kristall plant which makes vodka. We came across a

museum but later noticed a poster advertising an evening play called: 'Waiting

For Godot' . "Let's go to it " insisted my colleague. "But we are already late!"

Well we went. When we entered the building there was nobody selling tickets

or anyone at the stalls. We climbed up the stairs, stumbled across a hall and

inconspicuously peeped through the door. We glided into a huge theater

where a slogan 'Art is for the people ' had been sculpted on the roof. It

almost resembled a church. On the stage, the two actors playing tramps

were reenacting a scene where they were arguing over how to put on and take

off boots. One character was scolding the other for not taking his boots off

every night otherwise he would hurt his feet.

The play, 'Waiting for Godot' by Samuel Beckett, tells the story of how two

tramps are struggling to just survive at the lowest basic level and preserve a form

of fragile dignity which can crumble at any moment. The two tramps, while

waiting for Godot for inexplicable reasons, hotly discuss, debate and argue

over what they must do . Should they wait for Godot? Should they kill themselves?

Why don't they leave and go to the Pyrenees? Should they end their friendship

as they are getting on each others nerves? How should they cope with incessant

boredom?

Many optimists have condemned this play as too pessimistic. Just the whining

of a bunch of losers! But this is too shorted sighted and myopic a view. The

play can be construed as questioning naive over optimistic assumptions we have

about our lives. The darkness of the play is redeemed by the humor. And there

is something heroic and humane about the tramps which can touch us.

Who Godot is remains enigmatic! Beckett had a wicked sense of humor and

a sharp wit. The Russian critics, like an English actor , thought or hoped that

Godot was God. But Beckett was having none of that. He stated in a 1955

interview: "I told him {Sir Ralph Richardson} that if by Godot I had meant God

I would have said God, and not Godot. This seemed to disappoint him greatly.'

We never find out who Godot is and why the tramps are waiting for him. Are

they hoping Godot will offer them work or a place to stay? Who knows?

Yet the tramps, Estragon and Vladimir are not the total outcasts who are utterly

defeated or trapped by despair as some critics claim. Their lives are not totally

devoid of meaning or just a struggle for basic survival. They are searching for

something elusive and enchanting. For instance, you hear Estragon state;

'We always find something, eh, Did, to give us the impression we exist?'

Vladimir {Impatiently} 'Yes, yes , we 're magicians. But let us persevere in what

we have resolved ,before we forget.' That is one of the problems. The characters

are stuck in a void where they are disorientated by a lack of clear sense of

time and space. They forget what day it is, what they did yesterday and what

park they last slept in.

Vladimir says: 'You should have been a poet.'

Estragon 'I was, {gesture towards his rags } isn't that obvious.'

We often hear the phrase 'Nothing to be done ', or 'No use struggling ' and

'One is what one is'. There seems to be nothing in their lives to mitigate their

boredom, despair and hopelessness other than their wit. This is perhaps the

only thing they have in common with the characters from Shakespeare's plays.

The play raises the question presented by another poet Seamus Healy who

asked: 'Is there life before death?' What comes across is the intense

boredom experienced by the characters when, for example, Vladimir states:

'We wait. We are bored.. No don't protest , we are bored to death , there is no

denying it . Good . A diversion comes along and what do we do? We let it

go to waste. Come let's get to work! In an instant all will vanish and we will

be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness'.

In the play, we are reminded of the bleak life of being homeless. One of the

characters awakens to find someone beat him up while he slept. The threat

of violence in always lurking in the background while the small park with the

tree seems like a very temporary refuge. We can guess the police will soon

move them on.

During the intermission we spoke to the director Victor who seemed

surprised to see a foreigner . He told us he was an actor and that the

performance had been put on for free. We even were treated to a free

cup of tea by a kind spectator. When we later told another Russian English

teacher that we had seen Beckett's play, the teacher, Natasha beamed,

saying: "I would love to see this performance". I got the impression that

Beckett's play can find many spectators if they only knew about when it

was being performed. Perhaps the dark themes of the play such as

intense suffering, despair and small joys strike a chord amid people

who have been through a lot.

The theater came as a nice little surprise. But as the character Vladimir

wisely declares: 'Never neglect the little things of life.'

Janus

Supreme Court rules against unions in Janus case, protest in Foley Square at 5 pm

By Marjorie Stamberg

The Supreme Court this morning released its 5-4 decision against the unions in the case of Janus v. AFSCME et al. 

This essentially institutes "right-to-work" and "open shop" conditions throughout the country. The intent by the right wing is to terminally weaken the one remaining stronghold of organized labor, public employees. The pro-capitalist union bureaucracy did nothing to stop it, as they are totally beholden to bourgeois legality, and wedded to the Democratic Party. 

Janus is a body blow against class-collaborationist trade-unionism, but it does not prevent class struggle -- if anything, the opposite, as shown by the recent teachers strikes, almost all in states with "right-to-work" laws and many with laws banning strikes by public employees. We call to bust the union-busters with sharp class struggle. Labor's gotta play hardball to win!

 

On its website the Professional Staff Congress has activated its call for a protest at Foley Square in downtown Manhattan at 5 p.m. today. 

Protect Kids Online

The Ultimate Parent Guide for Protecting Your Child on the Internet

By VPNmentor.com

Introduction

We see news stories about the impact of technology on our everyday lives all the time these days. Many of us started to think about how technology affects us personally. But how many of us have stopped to think about how it affects our children?

85% of mothers said they use technology to keep their children busy.

Kids are receiving their first internet-capable device earlier and earlier. That same study showed that 83% of American households have tablets, and 77% have smartphones.

Even in school, technology is abundant. Teachers set homework that requires online research and tools and use apps to manage that homework.

Technology is always adapting and it’s here to stay, but many do not think about the safety risk in terms of cybersecurity. A recent study revealed a startling figure: 68% of parents never check their children’s online activity. And that online activity increases year after year.

For a lot of children, the online world is more real than the real world. It is crucial to our children’s wellbeing that we understand what they see online, what is out there, both good and bad, and how it impacts their physical and emotional wellbeing.

The problem, as many of us would eagerly admit, is that we feel we don’t really understand the online world. Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter are bewildering enough, without even mentioning 4chan and TOR. Furthermore, we don’t feel that we have the technical skills to navigate this complex landscape.

The good news is that it’s not that difficult to put certain technical controls in place to protect your children online. Far more importantly, the best thing you can do to protect your children is to talk to them; set clear boundaries for what and when they access online, but also to be there for your children when they make a mistake, or when they have gone too far. Isn’t that what parenting fundamentally comes down to?

In this comprehensive guide, we outlined eight areas that you should pay attention to as you navigate this complex online world. Depending on the ages of your children, not all of it will apply to you. Think of it not only as guidelines for what you should do now but what you should pay attention to as your children grow.

1.  Mobile phones and apps

According to consumer research by Influence Central, the average age that children get their first smartphone is 10 years old. Giving your child a smartphone comes with numerous benefits. A phone is an excellent safety tool; your child can use it to let you know they safely reached their destination, call you for a ride, or call in case of an emergency. You can also use the GPS on their phone to track their location. Knowing that you can always reach your child is a tremendous peace of mind for a parent.

Smartphones, however, can also be misused, and in some situations can make children vulnerable. Because smartphones are personal devices, we don’t often know what our children do on them, or how they use them.

If you’re considering giving your child a smartphone, it helps to have some clearly outlined guidelines in place beforehand, so everyone is on the same page. If your child already has a smartphone, it’s not too late to review the family rules. Demonstrate to them that having a smartphone is a big responsibility.

Implement smartphone rules with your child. Making sure your kids involve you on their phone activities with help keep them safe.

There are many precautions you can take to implement phone safety:

• Have your kid sign a smartphone contract before you give them one. Print out a list of cellphone rules and stick it in a public place in your home.
• Download parental controls. Parental control apps for younger children enable you to limit your child’s usage, determine their location, and monitor their calls and messages. Apps also allow you to shut off certain functions at different times. For example, disabling text messaging while driving.
• Set limits when your child can use a smartphone and for how long each day.
• Set a personal example for your child. Don’t bring your phone to the dinner table, and don’t text and drive.
• Set up a charging station in a central location in your home. Phones should stay out of your child’s bedroom and they won’t be in use late at night.
• You can also install an app to monitor your child’s activity. Keepers is one type of app that alerts parents about harmful, abusive, or suspicious messages, and it includes a tracking device to show your kid’s location in real time.

2.  Streaming content and smart TVs

We like to think back to a time when the whole family gathered around the TV to watch something wholesome together. (In reality, many of us probably had a TV in our rooms, and spent many hours watching TV without much guidance from our parents.)

That being said, streaming content has shot up in popularity, and there are more TV shows and movies available at our fingertips than ever before, much of it not particularly appropriate for kids.

There are, however, some great benefits of streaming services. Many feature great, educational children’s programming and documentaries. Most don’t show any ads, meaning that your kids won’t be bombarded with commercial messaging from all sides like they are when they watch regular TV. You can open up an entire world for your children with streaming content – the key is how you use it.

Most of the big streaming content providers have parental controls, some more robust than others. Netflix allows you to set up separate profiles for you and for your children.

Using these tools, you can ensure that your kids only have access to age-appropriate content. Because Netflix’s children’s menu features a different color scheme than the regular menu, you can easily see whether your kids access the content permitted to them or not. However, this doesn’t stop kids from moving over to your profile, so you still have to be vigilant.

iTunes and Apple TV allows parents to set rating levels for the content their children watch. By contrast, Amazon Prime features no parental controls, so the only thing to do is to logout of your account and not share the password.

All of these tools, however, do not replace having frequent conversations with your children about what they watch.

Monitor TV time by limiting the number of hours they watch per day, incorporating parental settings, talking to your child about the content they watch, and spending TV time as a family.

3.  Gaming consoles and online games

According to the NPD group, 91% of American children aged two to 17 play video games. Gaming consoles have long been a focus of fear and concern for many parents. With so many games featuring violent or sexual content, it is important to be careful about the kinds of games your children play.

In addition, console games that have a multiplayer component, or games that are entirely based online, are open to abuse from other players. Many games allow players from all over the world to chat with one another, potentially exposing kids to harassment and cyberbullying. Kids may also form relationships with other players and may give away their personal information.

Games are also a great way for kids to develop a variety of skills. They help children develop problem-solving skills, learn how to commit to long-term goals, and how to work as part of a team. They can also be a great opportunity for family bonding. Luckily, most gaming consoles provide robust parental controls, so parents can monitor their children’s gameplay.

Encourage your children to discuss the games they play. Make sure your child profile is set to private. Consider keeping the gaming console in a shared, social space. Study the age rating of the games. Use parental controls to set up profiles. Limit the type of people your child can speak to online.

4.  Social media

While the format has changed, parents have worried about their kids’ TV shows and video games for years. Social media, on the other hand, is a new worry to add to your plate.

Social media usage is now ubiquitous amongst US teens; 71% use more than one social platform. Children nowadays also spend an enormous amount of time on social media. A survey by the non-profit group Common Sense Media showed that 8 to 12 year-olds were online six hours per day, much of it on social platforms, and 13 to 18 year-olds a whopping nine hours!

According to a recent Harvard study, even though most social media platforms require users to be 13 years of age to sign up, 68% of parents surveyed had helped younger children set up an account.

Social media can be particularly addictive for tweens and teens. It also opens the door to a variety of different issues, like cyberbullying, inappropriate sharing, and talking to strangers (more on those below).

Access to social media is also central to teens’ developing social identity. It’s the way that they connect to their friends, and it can be a healthy way to hang out. The key is to figure out some boundaries so that it remains a positive experience.

Enforce a safe environment. Do not let your kids on social media until they’re old enough. Keep the computer in a public location. Limit the amount of time spent on social media. Block location access to all apps. Adjust the privacy settings. Monitor your child’s online activity.

5.  Cyberbullying

Our children’s lives have moved online. Unfortunately, their bullies have moved online too.

Cyberbullying is frequently in the news, with reports of teen suicides due to online harassment.

Cyberbullying occurs across all of the platforms we have outlined above, and it comes in many forms: spreading rumors and sending threatening messages via social media, texting, or email, pretending to be another child and posting embarrassing material under their name, forwarding private photos without consent, and generally posting online about another child with the intent to humiliate or degrade them.

Cyberbullying is particularly harmful because it is so public. In the past, if a kid was bullied on the playground, perhaps a few of his peers saw. Now, a child’s most private information can be splashed across the internet and is there permanently unless reported and taken down.

Cyberbullying can negatively affect the online reputation not only of the victim, but also of the perpetrator, and have a deep impact on that child’s future, including college admissions and employment.

It is also extremely persistent. If a child is the target of traditional bullying, his or her home is more often than not a place of refuge. Because digital platforms are constantly available, victims of cyberbullying struggle to find any relief.

It’s often very difficult to tell if your child is being bullied online. It happens online, so parents and teachers are less likely to overhear or notice it. Fewer than half of children bullied online tell their parents or another adult what they are going through, according to internet safety organization i-SAFE. In fact, according to a US government survey, 21% of children aged 12 to 18 have experienced bullying, and an estimated 16% were bullied online.

The best way to prevent cyberbullying or to stop it in its tracks is to be aware of your child’s behavior. A number of warning signs may present themselves.

A child who is bullied may shut down their social media account and open a new one. He or she may begin to avoid social situations, even if they enjoyed being social in the past. Victims (and perpetrators) of cyberbullying often hide their screen or device when other people come into their vicinity and become cagey about what they do online. They may become emotionally distressed or withdrawn.

Talk to your child about cyberbullying.

6.  Privacy and information security

As parents, we are most concerned about the effect of the online world on our children’s emotional and physical wellbeing. Children are susceptible to information security threats that can cause financial harm. These are the exact same threats that adults face: malware and viruses, phishing scams, and identity theft.

The issue is children are far less experienced and are generally far more trusting than us cynical adults. To kids, sharing their personal details, like their full name or where they live, may not seem like such a big deal. They may even be tricked by a malicious third party into sharing your credit card details.

There are a number of ways that hackers and thieves can get information out of children. Free downloadable games, movies, or even ringtones that market themselves to children can place viruses onto your computer and steal your information.

Hackers posing as legitimate companies like Google send emails purporting to ask for your child’s password. Or, they may pose as one of your children’s friends.

What should you communicate to your child?

• Have a discussion with your kids about the big threats online today. Make sure they know what a phishing attack and a disreputable games website looks like, so they know not to fall for these scams.
• Make sure they keep all of their information private and that they never publish their full name, phone number, address, or school they attend in a public place.
• Talk to your kids about passwords. Having a strong password is the first and best measure to prevent hacking and identity theft. Using a secure password generatorlike the one we created is great for this occasion, and trying out passwords together is a fun way of ensuring your child’s password is as strong as possible.
• Tell your kids to avoid using public wifi – this is an easy way for hackers to get into their devices.

What you can do to create a safe environment:

• Install a strong antivirus program on your home computer and the devices of all family members.
• Think about installing a VPN on your computer. A VPN, or virtual private network, encrypts your connection and anonymizes your web browsing. This makes it far harder for hackers to access and steal your private information.
• If you and your kids use a lot of different devices around the house, consider installing a VPN on your router. That way, all internet traffic that goes through the router will be protected, without having to install the VPN on every device.
• Install an ad blocker so your children won’t have to face deceptive advertising that encourages them to download malicious programs onto your computer.
• If your kids have smartphones, make sure that their security settings are set to maximum.

7.  Viewing inappropriate content online

Because the internet is so open and public, it is also a place where kids can stumble upon content intended for adults, content which they may find upsetting, confusing or distressing. “Inappropriate content” can mean many things to many different people, from swearing to violence to sexual nature.

It’s not easy, but eventually, you will need to have a conversation with your children about what they might see online. Many children don’t go to their parents when they see something they perhaps shouldn’t have seen, for fear that their parents will be angry at them, and take away their devices or internet access.

If your child comes to you with this type of issue, the best thing to do is to respond calmly and be open to discussion. If the content under discussion is sexual, your child will likely be embarrassed already, particularly when talking to their parents about these kinds of issues. Let them know you are there for them and are ready to answer any questions without judgment.

Young people may see sexual content online for all kinds of reasons. They may have seen it by mistake, a friend might have sent it to them, or they may have sought it out themselves out of natural curiosity.

It helps a great deal to talk to your kids honestly and frankly about sex, and a discussion about online pornography is a crucial part. A lot of research has shown that pornography can have a detrimental effect on young people, giving them distorted and unhealthy notions about sex. Pornography can also lead people to think of others as objects, rather than people with thoughts and feelings. At the same time, it’s totally normal to be curious about sex and relationships. This conversation is a great opportunity to direct your kids to positive resources about sexuality.

There are also a number of steps you can take to try to prevent your kids from being exposed to content they’re not ready for, like setting up parental controls on your internet connection. Remember, though, that technical fixes can’t replace open communication with your child.

Communicate with your child:

• Let your kids know that they can always come to you if something is bothering them, or if they have questions about anything they have seen online.
• Let them know that it’s totally normal to be curious about sex. Direct them to positive online resources like Brook and Thinkuknow. Thinkuknow is particularly good for younger children, and it includes different, age-appropriate sites for different age groups. You may find it helpful to look through the site together and discuss some of the issues.

Steps you can take to block inappropriate content:

• Set filters to block inappropriate content like pornography. Your ISP (internet service provider) should provide free parental controls, as should most gaming consoles. These are usually pretty easy to set up.
• Set Google to “safe” mode so that your children won’t inadvertently see inappropriate content in search results.
• Install an ad blocker to prevent viruses that might have inappropriate content.

8.  Online predators

In our last section, we take a look at the darkest and scariest online threat of all: online child predators. According to the US Department of Justice, 13% of young people with internet access have been the victims of unwanted sexual advances, and one in 25 children have been solicited for offline contact.

Predators engage in a practice called “grooming”. In other words, they attempt to form a relationship with a child with the intention of latter abusing them.

The internet has made life a lot easier for child predators. Predators target their victims through any and all online mediums: social media, email, text messages, and more. By far the most common method, however, is via an online chatroom: 76% of online encounters with sexual predators begin in a chat room.

Predators often create multiple online identities, posing as children to trick kids into talking to them. They discover as much as they can about the children they are targeting by researching those children through their social media profiles, and what they have posted on chatrooms.

They may contact a number of children at once but tend to concentrate their efforts on the most vulnerable. These predators aren’t satisfied with merely chatting with children online. They frequently trick or coerce their victims into online sexual activity, via webcam or by sending sexual images. They may also attempt to meet and abuse their victims in person.

It’s not always easy to tell if a child is being groomed, particularly because most keep it a secret from their parents. There are a number of warning signs: children who are being groomed by predators may become very secretive because the predator often threatens the child not to share information with their parents or friends. Children can also become sad and withdrawn, distracted, and have sudden mood swings. It is absolutely crucial to let your child know that you are there for them and that they can talk to you about anything.

What should you communicate to your child?

• Have a discussion with your child about the risks of online predators. Make sure they know to be careful about who they talk to online, and not to share any personal information with strangers.
• Tell your kids that they can come to you with any problem, no matter what it is.
• Think about working through some educational content with your children relating to this topic, like the excellent videos at Thinkuknow.
• If you think that your child is at risk, seek support from their school, a social worker, and the police.

Conclusion

There are lots of different technical tools available out there to help keep your kids safe online. These vary from VPNs and antivirus software to internet filters and parental controls. But none of these are really enough to help keep your child safe.

As we’ve repeated over and over in this guide, the key isn’t mastering a set of complicated technical tools. (In fact, most are very easy to set up, so don’t let a lack of technical ability hold you back). It also doesn’t mean you have to master the latest internet fad every time one pops up – believe us, you will never keep up!

The far more important, but also far more difficult task, is to have frequent, open and honest discussions with your children about their lives. Remember, internet companies, social media networks, gaming providers, and everyone else in the online space may be able to help you set content limits, but they don’t necessarily have your child’s best interests at heart.

The very best person to keep your child safe online is you. Talking about how to stay safe on the internet is an excellent conduit to build a trusting and positive relationship with your child.

Internet safety needs to be a priority for every parent and caregiver. If you have found this guide useful, consider sharing it with friends and family via Facebook and Twitter.

Feel free to share and copy this post or parts of it to your site, blog, or social networks. All we ask is that you attribute it to us. We want to keep kids safe, and your help to spread the word is important.

Click here to share it on Facebook or Twitter.

Teacher Strikes Lesson

Oakland Forum on “Lessons of the Red States Teacher Strikes” 

A Report by Jack Gerson

Last Saturday (June 9), I attended the “Lessons of the Red States Teacher Strikes” forum featuring teacher leaders of the mass education strikes in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Arizona. The forum, held in Oakland, California at a local public high school (Oakland Tech) was organized by the Oakland teachers’ union and co-sponsored by the San Francisco, Berkeley and Richmond (California) teachers’ unions. Here are my impressions and observations about this event (this is a first draft; I hope to polish and elaborate this, but probably not immediately.)

1.  The speakers were inspiring, individually and collectively. The women – all four are women – were courageous, resolute, and brilliant organizers. Most readers will probably already know this from the widespread coverage of the red state strikes. If not, I think that this summary, brief as it is, will make this clear.

2. The stated aim of the event was to learn how the red state organizers had carried out the most impressive labor actions in decades despite what had hitherto been considered insurmountable obstacles – weak state unions, anti-strike legislation, lack of collective bargaining, no dues checkoff – and to build on these to launch coordinated local and / or statewide actions in California.  The organizers had anticipated filling Oakland Tech’s 800-seat auditorium and hoped for a large turnout from younger teachers and community, based on the overwhelmingly positive response to the red state strikes. But only somewhere between 200 and 300 showed up, very few under 50 years old. The majority were veteran Bay Area leftists.

3.  In any event, the talks by the red state teacher leaders were inspirational as well as educational.  They each talked about how they were able overcome anti-strike legislation and build mass strikes despite the weakness of state and local unions. In all three states – West Virginia, Kentucky, Arizona (and I believe that this was true in Oklahoma and North Carolina too) – the organizers worked outside of the formal union structures, using social media to reach out to, and build networks of, initially hundreds, then thousands, and now tens of thousands (For example: ongoing networks of 24,000 in West Virginia, and of 55,000 in Arizona.)  Although the core of these organizations are school workers and have developed networks of school leaders at the local and school levels, they don’t restrict their membership to teachers: The networks include both union members and non-members; public school teachers and charter school teachers; certificated staff (teachers) and classified staff (clericals, janitors, food service workers, etc.). They don’t restrict themselves to traditional union issues, or even to strictly educational issues – for example, the West Virginia teachers demanded and won a 5% across the board pay increase for all West Virginia public employees, not just teachers, while one of the key issues taken up by the Kentucky movement is how to address gang violence.

In these ways, these organizations are breaking out of the insularity, conservatism, and bureaucratic inertia of virtually the entire union leadership at national, state, and even local levels. It’s reminiscent of Occupy in Fall 2011; of the Spring 2011 Oakland bank campaign (where Oakland teachers and community allies campaigned to “Bail Out Schools Not Banks and End Foreclosures”, culminating in occupation of Wells Fargo’s downtown Oakland branch, where seven teachers were arrested (I was one of those seven); of the June / July 2012 sit-in to protest school closures at Oakland’s Lakeview Elementary, organized by teachers, parents, and community. (For those who remember, it’s reminiscent of the “struggle group” concept in the old IS circa 1970, which was counterposed to the traditional rank and file union caucus approach.) Importantly: it’s not just posing the need for teacher unions to “reach out to the community”, but rather the need for alternative forms of organization that can work inside and outside the union, uniting union members with non-members and with the community around demands that cut across traditional parochial / insular lines. But apparently local teacher union leaders are not taking away this lesson (for example, Oakland teacher union president-elect Keith Brown, who chaired the June 9 forum, began his concluding remarks by observing that the key lesson to be learned from the speakers is that “we need to reach out to the community”. I barely was able to restrain myself from yelling out “Oh come on Keith, you’ve known that all along.”)

Rather, to reemphasize at the risk of redundancy: the key lesson here is the importance of building what could be called “classwide organizations” – organizations that operate inside and outside the workplace, that include union members and non-members, teachers and non-teachers; that take up educational and non-educational issues (e.g., environmental issues); etc.

An equally important lesson is to not be constrained by the fear of strikes being labeled “illegal”. If the organization is strong enough, with enough support among schoolworkers and enough support in the community, the courts and the legislature are likely to fold – as they did in the red state strikes.

4.  I think that the very weakness of their unions was a key to the strikes’ success. In states where teacher unions are strong, dues checkoff is used to build full-time, often highly paid, central union staff whose world view is closer to that of management than it is to the everyday worker. The officials and staffers far more often than not act as a brake on struggle, urging and when they can imposing a passive, legalistic strategy (at best). Case in point, the 3-million-member National Education Association (NEA) and its largest affiliate, the 300,000-plus member California Teachers Association (CTA). CTA has used dues check-off (“the agency shop”) to funnel the bulk of member dues to its highly paid and privileged staff and officers. The hundreds of CTA staffers are paid nearly double the salaries of classroom teachers. For decades, they, argued that “we’re too weak” to organize effectively against charter schools; that we have to “collaborate” with big business and with school management; that strikes can’t win, so we have to “compromise” (read: agree to rotten contracts), etc. They stacked the deck, taking the lead in negotiating contracts that expire at different times in different districts, and then turning around and arguing that coordinated strikes are a non-starter because contracts expire at different times. Militants who argued for even building local strikes were labeled “strike-happy”.  Most “progressives” and “progressive caucuses” fell in line. A few examples:

·         CTA pulled the plug on its 2003 initiative to reform California Proposition 13 to tax corporate property more heavily (they caved to pressure from the Chamber of Commerce, who behind the scenes threatened to go after dues check-off).  

·         CTA staff and the Oakland teacher union president meekly and unilaterally called off a strike with a bad, last-minute deal in spring 2006. Four years later, CTA staff and a different OEA president postponed striking for months, and then limited it to one day with no followup (despite its being over 90% effective, and despite the school district having imposed rotten terms on the union.)

·         The “progressive” leadership of the Los Angeles teachers union called off a walkout of tens of thousands of teachers when a judge issued an injunction with fines of $1 million / day if they struck.

·         In 2009, CTA sent staff from district to district, warning local unions to accept downsizing, including layoffs, in order to “protect our contractual gains” – i.e., wages and benefits.

The red state strikes show that there’s another way, a better way: organize to fight, for a classwide fight, an inclusive fight around classwide demands, rather than meek, legalistic acquiescence.

5. Two more points:

a. Mass media contrasts teacher salaries in California with those in the red states and implies – or states outright – that strikes occurred in those states because teacher pay was so low. But when adjusted for inflation, average pay in California is not much higher than in, say, West Virginia – and average pay in several large urban districts (e.g., Oakland) is actually lower than the average in the red states. Moreover, the red state strikes were not just about teacher pay: a key unifying demand was more money for education. The mass media implies that California and other “blue” states put much more money per capita into education than the red states. Not so. California, despite having the fifth largest economy in the world (behind only China, the U.S., Germany and Japan) is 41^st of the 50 states in education spending per capita – well behind, for example, West Virginia.

            b. The red state strikes blow apart the “lesser evil” argument in multiple ways: First, many strikers actually were / are Trump supporters, and see him as shaking up the status quo that has brought them lower wages, insecurity, raised their rents, taken away their homes, left their family members jobless and their children with poor prospects.  Second, in blue states like California, the Democrats, far from being the opponents of privatization, charter schools and downsizing that they’ve been made out to be in the mass media, have been its advocates.

Take the example of Oakland, where I taught and was active in the teacher union. For the past 20 years, Oakland has been ground zero in the assault on public education.  In 2003, the state put the Oakland public schools in receivership, a move orchestrated by Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad (supported by his billionaire friends Reed Hastings and John Doerr) and his long-time ally, then-Oakland mayor and now California governor Jerry Brown. Broad, Bill Gates and company turned the Oakland schools into a laboratory for privatization: under the state takeover enrollment in charter schools more than quadrupled while enrollment in public schools fell by one-third; the state moved in ostensibly because of a $37 million budget deficit, and left seven years later after tripling it – turning it into a $110 million debt, which to this day the state insists that the district must repay in full with interest; more than half the schools in Oakland were closed or reorganized, the libraries were shut down in nearly all middle schools and in several high schools, custodial workers were laid off, etc. Under the state takeover, Oakland had per capita double the rate of outsourcing to private contractors and double the administrative overhead of the average California school district.

While Oakland was a laboratory, the Democrats nearly everywhere supported the policies of downsizing, charter schools, test-based accountability, school closures, outsourcing, and privatization. The assault on public education was bipartisan – its most ardent advocates included Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy and California Congressman George Miller (the two leading proponents of the No Child Left Behind legislation), and President Barack Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan.

It’s also important to consider that in the “red states” Republican legislators responded to mass pressure by at least partially caving, fearing that they’d lose their jobs and their legislative majorities in the next elections. But in “blue” California, the Republican Party has nearly collapsed in the most populous parts of the state. The Democrats have lockdown control of the state legislature as well as the governor, and they have little fear of losing same. So they feel little constraint to do more than pay lip service to education, and can be expected to continue the same policies that they have for decades: providing inadequate funding for education (again: California ranks 41^st of the 50 states in that regard); supporting charter schools (or whatever comes down the pipe in place of charter schools, should the bloom come off that rose); supporting test-based accountability (or whatever repressive variant comes down that pipe); supporting state takeovers of local school districts, thus taking control out of the hands of the public (just as charter schools do – charter schools receive public funding but are privately controlled). Is it any wonder that so many working class folks have been repelled by the Democrats’ austere neoliberalism, and that at least some have turned to Trump?

6. Problems: Where do the red state strike organizers go from here? They know that they need to consolidate their gains and to spread them nationally. But who can they reach out to? They look to who they see – ostensible “progressive” locals, like Oakland and San Francisco and Los Angeles. But the teacher leaders in the sponsoring locals have a past and present connection to CTA and its policies. And their own records.

It’s important to see things as they really are. That can be a downer. So far too often, far too many leftists act as cheerleaders and, willfully or not, wind up contorting and distorting facts to fit their desires. Thus, Jeff Mackler, national secretary of the group Socialist Action, recently wrote an article hailing the Oakland teachers’ union (OEA) as the most militant teacher union in the country, saying that the union has launched five strikes over “the past decades”. Well, yes – if you go back far enough. But over the past 22 years, OEA has gone out for exactly one day, and the OEA officers and CTA staff resisted even that.

And OEA has been far from the worst – inadequate as it’s been, it’s still far better than most. Now, I don’t want to write off the newly elected OEA leadership out of hand. But they – and the other local union officials – are not going to act much differently than in the past UNLESS there’s an eruption from below. We certainly shouldn’t look to CTA or NEA or AFT to take the lead. Quite the opposite, as we’ve argued above. And I’m not hopeful about the local leaders, either. Maybe some will be on the right side – but I think that if that happens, it will be because they will be reacting to motion from below, not taking the lead in unleashing it.

7. Meanwhile: How to proceed in places like Oakland, where the teacher union has been out of contract since last June. And in other California school districts – especially large urbans.

            First: Build a network, if possible with contacts in every school in your district. This has been a foundation for building towards strikes in the past: in Chicago in 2012; in Arizona earlier this year; etc. In the past, this has been best done by releasing several teachers from classroom duties temporarily to go from school to school, holding school meetings, making contacts, identifying teachers who can act as shop stewards / representatives for their schools, etc. Based on the red state teacher experiences, this probably ought to be combined with social media outreach.

             Second: Don’t base everything on waiting for the state and local union leaderships to act. As one of the red state teacher leaders said on Saturday, “They’re not our bosses. We’re their bosses.” Outline steps towards building a strike – including building a network with contacts in as many schools as possible, and reach out beyond union lines to non-members, teachers in other districts, classified schoolworkers, community members, etc. Reach out beyond narrow bread and butter issues, and even beyond simply educational issues. And be ready for state, national, and local leaders to get in the way, unless / until you’ve built sufficient strength. For example, they may say that coordinated strikes would be illegal when many districts are still bound by contractual no-strike clauses (CTA, NEA, AFT, etc. have for decades had a passive, legalistic approach. That’s why there have been hardly any teacher strikes in California over the past twenty years. To repeat a point made earlier: Oakland, hailed as a model of teacher militancy by some “progressives”, has struck for exactly one day since 1996.)

8. Finally, it’s time to draw some hard conclusions about the state of the unions, and not just teacher unions. For decades, the unions have operated on the “team concept” – collaboration with management and the state. The international union leaderships have, for the most part, supported – even participated in – U.S. imperialism’s exploitative international policies. At home, they have urged labor peace, acquiescing meekly to the bosses while turning a mailed fist towards rank and file militants. AFT President Randy Weingarten states this clearly in an open appeal to the ruling class to take the side of union leadership on the impending Janus court case, which if it carries would outlaw dues checkoff. Weingarten said:

“The funders backing the Janus case and the Supreme Court justices who want to eliminate collective bargaining with the hope that such a move would silence workers need only to look at West Virginia for what will happen if they get their way. A loss of collective bargaining would lead to more activism and political action, not less. Collective bargaining exists as a way for workers and employers to peacefully solve labor relations.”

That’s a pretty clear statement of class collaboration, isn’t it? Weingarten says to the ruling class: “Look out below. We union bureaucrats are what’s standing between you and the wrath of the masses.” In that regard, we should recall that the storied labor mass militancy of the 1930s was largely carried out, successfully, without collective bargaining and often “illegally”. And now the same is true for the red state teacher strikes. That should at least give us pause, and cause to think further about the deal that brought about labor peace at the end of the 1930s, exchanging collective bargaining and a piece of the pie for no-strike contracts, no-strike pledges, and permanent state intervention and regulation of labor.

Dues checkoff is double edged: the Janus case is part of a virulent right wing attempt to destroy unions, period. And this is something that we all need to oppose. But we need to be aware that if Janus is defeated, the union leaderships will continue with their course of using members’ dues to strengthen their bureaucratic stranglehold and to try to keep their foot on the neck of potential militant struggle. I think that the red state teacher strikes, and particularly their alternative forms of organizing and organization, inside and outside the unions, and their classwide membership and demands, poses an important alternative model. It’s one that we need to try to work with and deepen. We need to all look at ways to broaden and sustain such a model – hitherto, the model has been inspiring during the upsurge (e.g., the first few months of Occupy) but has not endured. Unions, on the other hand, have been able to consolidate the gains won in strikes and other contract struggles – but have done so by strengthening a central bureaucracy and by more and more collaborating with management and integrating with the state.