http://themilitant.com/2018/8212/821220.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 82/No. 12 March 26, 2018
(front page, editorial)
Get in a car, take a plane, join workers in struggle!
Teachers and other school workers are locked in bitter battles today
with state governments in Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arizona and
elsewhere. The Militant urges workers, youth and the labor movement
across the country to get in a car or a plane and join these fights!
Build solidarity with them everywhere! This is the road to organize and
strengthen the labor movement, cut across the divisions the bosses and
their government try to impose on us and open up space for workers to
make gains.
Workers across the country looked at West Virginia. Teachers, bus
drivers, cooks and other school workers there went on a nine-day strike
— a strike the state government said was illegal — and won. They built a
broad social movement of working people and our allies. It’s a breath of
fresh air.
Inspired by the victory and the way it was won — with careful
preparation, discipline, unity, through the unions, reaching out for
support — teachers and other workers elsewhere are stepping up their own
fights for better wages, health care, pensions and dignity.
How did the workers in West Virginia win? Standing on the shoulders of
the tradition of class struggle waged by union coal miners, they
organized to win broad support from parents, students, farmers and other
workers. At the initiative of the teachers, food distribution and day
care for students were organized. They relied on their own strength, not
on promises from capitalist politicians.
From coast to coast and around the globe, the bosses and their
governments have been making working people pay for the capitalist
economic crisis. They lock us out, break our unions, get their
Democratic and Republican brethren to pass laws that smother us in red
tape. Too often, union officials tell us we shouldn’t fight, we can’t
win, and to rely on the politicians. Our unions get smaller and weaker —
a little over 6 percent of workers in private industry are organized today.
Small towns have been devastated by factory closings. Drug addiction is
ravaging sections of the working class from rural areas to big cities.
Seeking to divide us and keep wages down, the rulers in Washington
arrest and deport workers without “proper” papers.
Millions of workers are looking for answers in the face of the social
and moral crisis of capitalism. They are beginning to learn through our
own experience that there are two opposing classes — the capitalist
rulers and the working people, who have nothing but their hands and
their millions-strong numbers.
Look to the lessons of past class battles. We strongly recommend you
read, study and emulate the example of the revolutionary-minded
Teamsters union in the Midwest in the 1930s recorded in the four-volume
Teamsters series by Farrell Dobbs, one of the central leaders of these
battles and of the Socialist Workers Party. Get them from party branches
listed on page 8, or pathfinderpress.com.
Build on the victory in West Virginia! Organize the unorganized!
Solidarity with the school workers in Oklahoma, Kentucky, Mississippi
and Arizona! An injury to one is an injury to all. And a victory for one
is a victory for all.
Related articles:
Inspired by W.Va. victory workers organize to fight
Victory of W.Va. teachers builds labor movement
Bosses disregard for safety led to Washington Amtrak derailment
Appalachia telecom workers strike against Frontier
Ky. teachers fight threat of government pension cuts
Uptick spurs jobs, picks up confidence of working class
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