Counterfeit Unions Seek to Shut Down Oklahoma Wildcat

by Rich Gibson 4/12/18

After nine days of a rank and file organized wildcat strike, the boss of the Oklahoma Education Association, Alicia Priest, moved to end it, sell it out, because, “Republicans in the State Senate would not consider additional revenue sources.”

Since the other side said, “NO,” she wants to quit.

The other side always says, “No,” until they say, “We yield.”

As the OEA is conceding (the unions have so much practice) a sizeable force supporting the teachers grew. That powerful solidarity came from working people in Oklahoma, and even around the world.

Alicia Priest seeks to staunch what she knows is a dangerous social movement rising up from the grassroots. School staff occupy the centripetal organizing place in North American de-industrialized live, producing not merely the next generation of workers and soldiers, but the ideas which can propel a serious social movement for equality and justice.

The strike so far has made no gains whatever, but Priest calls this “a victory.”

It’s a victory for her and those like her if the school workers indeed return to school and abandon a long term battle against her and the Oklahoma state bosses she serves.

Some Oklahoma teachers are meeting online, as I write, to try to continue the strike they created.

The educators had heroically shut down the schools, demanding that the state tax the rich in order to improve every conceivable condition in a decayed school system, and for wage and benefits for the school staff.

This in the face of recent tax maneuvers that lifted tax burdens, like capital gains, from the wealthy and shifted them onto poor and working people: allowing taxes on gambling, tobacco, gas and oil, and a sales tax.

Californians should remember that the CTA backed a measure to tax other workers in order to pay off school workers. That half-wit scheme failed by two-thirds. That CTA betrayal failed.

Oklahoma educators’ wildcat followed the wildcat strike in W. Virginia, successfully sold out as the union mis-leader were finally able to step in front of the workers’s strike and shut it down with no gains on the key issue of the battle: health care.

A wave of school staff wildcats is more than possible with Arizona and Kentucky probably following suit.
The union bosses are desperate to bring these wildcats, which prove them irrelevant, to an end, fast.

Their tactic is to lure the educators back into voting booths to overturn the boogie-man, Trump, while it’s abundantly clear that the Democrats and the Republicans are two heads of the same snake

Together they back attacks on education (remember Arne Duncan and Rahm Emanuel?), the ruin of the inner cities, the bailouts, and perpetual war.

So far, we can learn from these very real class struggles that rank and file direct action is effective because it strategically hits where all workers’ power lies: at work. There, we create all value. If we build solidarity, we can control the processes, products, and value of our labor.

We can learn that the unions are unfit to lead, not merely because the union bosses are utterly corrupt (and often stupid)--as they are--but the very structures of the unions divide people more than they unite us.

The unions, in addition, are driven by two entirely wrong ideas:

the unity of workers and bosses (partners in production) and another which has not been addressed;
the realities of endless warfare and financial bankruptcy paid for, so far, by us, working people.

We can learn that, given the bankruptcy of the unions, we need to formalize the informal groups, perhaps “councils” that brought the wildcats into being.

Those groups over time can include parents, community people, and yes, students. In a sense, they can not only serve as conduits for direct on-the-job action, but also be freedom schools.

We can aim high: a nationwide school strike to begin the school year 2018/19, as a harbinger for things to come.

We do not need the unions to call for our national action, though we can propose it through whatever unions or associations we may attend, including professional organizations which have deteriorated so far, it’s unlikely job actions will be promoted without considerable prompting.

And we can learn that if we interpret the fight properly, as a long-term, probably life-long battle, that will have advances and retreats, we can see victories ahead.

Rich Gibson is emeritus professor of education at San Diego State University. He’s led (illegal) strikes in Michigan and around the US. He’s a co-founder of the Rouge Forum. He is the author of the earlier Counterpunch article, “Counterfeit Unions of the Empire” https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/10/23/counterfeit-unionism-in-the-empire/ Rg@Richgibson.com.