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Attack on Public Workers Forum Worthy NOTE WORTHY Work History News Save the date! L H A Miriam Frank Book Talk: Out in the Union: A Labor History of Queer America New York Labor History Association, Inc. September 17, 6:00 p.m. Tamiment Library NYU A Bridge Between Past and Present Volume 31 No 2 Summer | Fall 2014 A joint event sponsored by Tamiment and the New York Labor History Association Attack on public workers forum By Joseph Lopez movement. Unions marched side-by-side PEOPle’s ClimaTE MARCH rganized labor is the enemy—or with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s and were an essential partner in the so right-wing media outlets like battle for racial and economic equality. New York City Fox News and politicians like O Garrido mentioned the 2012 Chicago Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker tell Teacher’s strike, which succeeded because Sunday, September 21 us. Private sector workers are inundated the union reached out to parents and made with misinformation about unions being issues such as teacher evaluations based on greedy and self-serving institutions that THIS IS AN INVITATION TO CHANGE EVERytHING. student performance a public concern. cause cities to fall into financial ruin, like “Private sector workers buy into the lies In September, world leaders are coming to New York City for a UN summit on Lopez Joseph Detroit’s recent bankruptcy. How do we because they don’t have the benefits we do,” the climate crisis. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is urging government change this image of public employee Emil Pietromonaco, UFT, and Henry said Emil Pietromonaco, secretary of the Garrido, DC 37 at May 8th conference. to support an ambitious global agreement to dramatically reduce global unions? “The Attack on Public Workers,” United Federation of Teachers. Many non- a panel discussion hosted by the New said DC 37 Associate Director Henry warming pollution. union employees do not have the pensions York Labor History Association on May 8, Garrido. He pointed out that the labor or health benefits that they are told we With our future on the line and the whole world watching, we’ll take a stand looked to answer the question. movement has been at its strongest when “selfishly” demand. But they would also not “We need to stop talking about ourselves fighting for the betterment of society as to bend the course of history. We’ll take to the streets to demand the world have weekends off or eight hour workdays and start talking about the community,” a whole, such as during the Civil Rights (Continued on page 5) we know is within our reach: a world with an economy that works for people and the planet, a world safe from the ravages of climate change: a world with New York City Labor Film Club–the past with a blast good jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities. By Jane LaTour the Labor Journal. The Film Club worked president of NABET Local 15; Baruch To change everything, we need everyone on board. hile we celebrate the Workers corroboratively with unions, using their College Professor Deborah Levenson, author Sunday, September 21 in New York City. Join us. peoplesclimatemarch.org Unite! Film Festival as an on- headquarters to host programs, and of Guatemala in Rebellion, Unfinished History, showcasing on-going struggles, such as the and Paul Filson, from the ACTWU’s Union going contributor to the New W organizing drive at what was then the only Label Department, “recently returned from York City labor and cultural scene, we look non-union hotel in New York City—the a fact finding tour of the strike.” Music was backward to the decade when the New Marriott-LaGuardia. provided by DJ Fred Herschkowitz, along York City Labor Film Club was a vital The Club welcomed trade unionists with a cash bar. DC 37 hosted this event on presence on the labor front. The Club was Rosie and her daughters from Central America—from El Salvador January 26, 1985. This is just one example founded in 1979 by Ken Nash, WBAI (Continued from page 7) be able to leave the house? When I was same frustrations. Society is still unsure of and Guatemala—holding benefits, pairing among so many of the progressive and radio broadcaster and DC 37 librarian, and feeling that a great deal was unfair and knee deep into my career I was asked ‘why our strength. I can get fed up and scream speakers with music and films. A benefit for imaginative programs that were part of the cohorts, including the late Lynn Taylor, striking Coca Cola workers in Guatemala fought verbally for my ‘wants.’ It was couldn’t I just have been a teacher and at the screen, or I can just take that energy Film Club’s lively schedule. very clear what was needed of me in a work normal hours?’ I had to convince former president of NYC Public Library featured the president of Local 1930, Marion In 1983, the Film Club organized a and apply it to my progress, my bravado, household of eight: cleaning, cooking, people I was happy with my job and I Guild Local 1930, and Carol Anshien, Porro, who chaired the DC 37 Central Labor Forum Series and a NYC Labor Film my life lessons and teach my co-workers, and just don’t cause any trouble. Why the wasn’t going to change. Watching the of the Community Cable Center, among American Committee; the film,The Real Festival. The forums hosted speakers such as heck do I have to ask to hang out with film Taking the Heat about women in the colleagues, and fellow technicians that I others. Films were shown at public venues Thing, and panelists, including the film’s Herbert Gutman, speaking on the “Cradle of friends while my brothers just seemed to FDNY, I was reminded of many of those stand by them, not behind them.” as well as on the monthly news program, director, Peter Schnall, who was also the (Continued on page 6) Lessons from the heartland Lessons from the heartland (Continued from page 4 alone. School board policy, of course, was integration, and her tale illuminates the which meant the city’s power elite had not By Sarah “Sadye” Stern “choice” as justice, and relegated the objective largely beholden to white voters, many of media’s role in fostering bias within the yet had to confront the question of racial BARBARA J. MINER begins Lessons from of racial equality. whom, through decades of racial segregation, very language of the debate. While the integration on any large scale. the Heartland, her story of the struggle for It seems appropriate that only one remained fearful of calls for integration. keystone of desegregation policy was laden justice in the Milwaukee school system, with Abrupt changes chapter of Miner’s book contains what could Though voluntary bussing posed as equal the burdensome “forced bussing,” the a blighted image of her hometown, and an Then came the Great Migration, when by any means be called an optimistic title: opportunity, politicians knew that most voluntary bussing and voucher programs allusion to the new American ghetto. In blacks flooded into the North’s “rust belt” “The Buses Roll and Desegregation Begins.” whites’ “choice” would keep them where they were pitched as “choice,” which alluded to Milwaukee in 2011, 55.3 percent of working- cities in search of work and an escape from For Miner, the rolling buses symbolize were—geographically and racially segregated the free market ideology that began to take age black men in Milwaukee did not have Jim Crow. From 1950 to 1960 the city’s black both the momentary momentum of the in the Milwaukee suburbs. Thus at its root in the 1980s. The idea of equality thus a job, 60 percent of the city’s public school population nearly tripled from 22,000 to desegregationists’ movement and a prediction grandest moment the struggle for integration became more narrowly defined by equality students were black, and by 2013 the city’s 62,500, causing a drastic and abrupt change of the movement’s ultimate unraveling. In was pursued through a half-hearted bussing of opportunity—i.e. everybody has equal eminent voucher program was funneling its in the demographic makeup of many of the Miner’s depiction “forced bussing” was a program, which did little to lessen segregation opportunity to apply for the new “specialty one billionth dollar of public money into its city’s neighborhoods. While many Southern fear that haunted Milwaukee politicians and on any broad scale and did nothing to schools”—rather than equality of outcome— private and religious schools, she tells. This is blacks did find jobs, they also confronted white voters’ imaginations before Milwaukee’s confront the issues of housing segregation and i.e. we will ensure your child, rich or poor, a picture, first and foremost, of unjustifiable institutional racism in the form of real estate desegregation movement even had feet, economic inequality that lay at the root of black or white, receives a good education. abandonment—of the city, of its schools, and practices and mortgage and home insurance thus the power structure was committed disparity within the schools. The framework of choice is deceptive further of its black population. Inequality within the policies that isolated blacks to a region of the to its defeat. When Judge Reynolds pinned Media fosters bias because it places the welfare and outcome of Barbara J. Miner public schools must never be viewed far from city that was known by the power elite and the blame for school segregation on the Miner shrewdly follows the role of students’ on the decisions of the individual this picture, Miner implies, for the wellbeing Rights Movement have yet to be achieved.
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