August 22, 2017
To whom do black lives really matter?
Over this past weekend, sixty-three people were shot in the city of Chicago, with, as of Monday morning, nine fatalities. Have you noticed the overwhelming news coverage of this travesty? I've not seen it. Sixty-three shootings, and outside Chicago, it seems nothing more than a footnote on news ("by the way, a lot of people were shot in Chicago this weekend...again"). How many cities actually have an online shooting tracker as does Chicago?
It appears that none of the shootings were committed by white separatists, racists, or members of the KKK, which at present seem to be the primary objects of overwhelming media interest. (To be fair, I can't rule out the possibility that the mass shootings were precipitated by statues memorializing the U.S. Civil War.)
This is the same Chicago where Mayor Emanuel, after the election of President Trump, welcomed those in the country illegally by saying, "You are safe in Chicago, you are secure in Chicago, and you are supported in Chicago. ... Chicago will always be a sanctuary city." How has this sanctuary city decision, one might ask, benefited those living in Chicago? Does anyone in Chicago feel "safe, secure, and supported" other than criminal aliens seeking to avoid capture and deportation? Who else today actually feels safe in Mayor Emanuel's Chicago? Certainly, those trapped in inner-city neighborhoods where police fear to police and crime and gang violence is rampant don't feel safe. They don't feel secure and supported. Chicago is not a sanctuary for them; it is a nightmare.
You might think the mainstream media would have at least as much to say about the weekend carnage in Chicago as they have to say about President Trump's assessment of blame for recent weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia – violence that pales in comparison to an average weekend in the Windy City. However, in spite of the oft heard refrain "Black Lives Matter," such lives don't seem of much concern if the deaths happen to occur in Chicago. Neither do they elicit much response if their ends are brought about at the hands of other blacks in drive-by shootings. Indeed, black lives seem to matter to our politicians and their media acolytes only if deaths can be blamed on the police or other so-called racist bigots.
For those running for public office as Democrats, "Black Lives Matter" makes an effective campaign slogan to gin up the minority vote every two and four years. To our progressive media, it's a persuasive mantra to discredit Republicans and white males who by virtue of skin color are labeled racist. But for minority Americans living in the poorer neighborhoods of Chicago, black lives truly do matter. It is their reality. It is their tragedy. It is they who live in fear. It is their lives at risk daily. It is their lives that should matter to all of us.
Why don't black lives matter enough to our
politicians to force the removal of criminals and
gangs who, in our country illegally, prey on the
helpless? Why don't black lives matter enough to enforce our laws and get the violent criminals out of the neighborhoods and off the streets? If black lives really matter, why are state, local, and federal governments so reluctant to take the steps necessary to put an end to this needless and wanton loss of life? One has to ask just how much liberal politicians and the progressive media really care about black lives.
Do black lives really matter to those in authority having the duty to protect? If so, where is the evidence to demonstrate such concern? It is certainly not to be found in the city of Chicago!
Chicago Public Schools
lays off nearly 1,000 as budget impasse threatens more
By
Alexander Fangmann
Chicago Public Schools
lays off nearly 1,000 as budget impasse threatens more
By
Alexander Fangmann
23 August 2017
In early August, Chicago Public Schools (CPS), which is controlled
by Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel, announced the layoff of 956 workers,
including 356 teachers. At the same time, further teacher layoffs and cuts in
public education are being planned around the state of Illinois, including at
CPS, as state funding to school districts has been halted until Republican
Governor Bruce Rauner and the Democratic-controlled state legislature come to
an agreement on a school funding bill.
The layoff of educators at CPS, which occurs on a yearly basis,
has brought the number of teachers at CPS to fewer than 21,000, from over
26,000 a decade ago, a decline of nearly 20 percent. Meanwhile, class sizes,
particularly in kindergarten and the early grades, are among the bottom 10
percent of the state, with some averaging more than 29 students per classroom.
Aside from classroom teachers, other educators and school
professionals have seen their ranks fall precipitously. Only 160 librarians are
budgeted for all schools, meaning that fewer than 25 percent of schools even have
one. Social workers and guidance counseling staff have also been severely
reduced.
While CPS claims that the layoffs are the result of “enrollment
changes, program adjustments and/or changes in students’ academic needs,”
demographic changes alone do not account for the continued layoffs. Indeed, the
demographic shifts themselves are in part a product of a deliberate policy of
dismantling the system of public education by starving it of funds and
promoting the construction of charter schools.
One of the crueler aspects of CPS’s yearly layoff tradition is
that laid-off teachers are forced to apply for open positions at other schools.
As long as they possess high enough teacher or employee ratings, in other
words, if they have not been negatively targeted by their principals, they are
eligible to apply at a series of humiliating job fairs. According to CPS there
will be approximately 500 open positions, and that in previous years around 60
percent of laid-off teachers have found positions elsewhere within the system.
These layoffs are likely to be only the first round of cuts
planned by CPS for the current school year. A provision of the recently passed
state budget specified that no school district in the state would receive
funding until the passage of a separate bill overhauling how the state doles
out funding to school districts.
Since the Democratic-majority in the state General Assembly was
able to override Rauner’s veto, the impasse between them over the continued
role of the trade unions in the imposition of social cuts has shifted to the
education-funding bill, to which Rauner issued an amendatory veto.
Schools have already missed one payment so far, the first time the
state has failed to send school funding to districts, and are preparing to miss
a second. Districts around the state are preparing contingency plans in order
to open schools on time for the fall term, with some combination of budgets
cuts and layoffs and increased debt in order to make up the balance.
Ostensibly, the purpose of the education-funding bill, known as
Senate Bill 1 (SB 1), is to fix some of the enormous inequality of Illinois’
education funding system, which relies heavily on local property taxes to fund
schools. Indeed, according to a report from
the Education Law Center, Illinois gets a grade of F for the fairness of its
state education funding, with high-poverty school districts receiving less
per-student funding from the state than low-poverty districts.
The bill supposedly remedies this inequality through the
elaboration of “adequacy targets” for each school district in the state. These
adequacy targets, which represent what it would cost to properly educate
students in the district, are based on complex formulae that take into account
a variety of factors including the number of special education students,
poverty rates and regional cost differences. Each district is then assigned a
“local capacity funding” number, what each district should be able to afford,
based on the property taxes it can draw from. Those districts with bigger
differences between their adequacy targets and local capacity targets would be
in line to receive greater state aid.
CPS would benefit greatly from a number of provisions in SB 1. One
would allow CPS to deduct teacher pension costs from its local capacity, as CPS
is the only school district that funds teacher pensions directly, with the
state picking up pensions for teachers elsewhere. CPS, and other districts,
would also be able to deduct property tax revenue in Tax Increment Financing
(TIF) districts from their local capacity targets, as the TIF mechanism reduces
property taxes in designated areas from being accessed by schools, libraries
and other taxing bodies.
However, behind the high-flown promises of school funding reform,
the reality is that little will change for most school districts, including
CPS. Estimates are that under the new funding system in SB 1, the state would
need to raise between $3.5 to $4 billion in new revenue in order to actually
meet those adequacy targets, none of which is anticipated. As a result, one of
the biggest differences is that CPS would receive a block grant of $250
million, largely to cover a backlog of pension payments.
Additionally, the bill contains a number of provisions that
further the attack on public education. One would require that charter schools
be funded at least 97 percent of the school district per capita rate, rather
than 75 percent. Another changes the funding mechanism for special education
and bilingual education, combining it with general education funding and
potentially threatening services that the most vulnerable students rely upon.
Rauner’s amendatory veto left much of the adequacy targets in
place, but removes the provisions for TIFs and pensions from all school
districts. Furthermore, it removed a provision that adjusted adequacy targets
based on the rate of inflation, rendering them meaningless over time.
Almost immediately after Rauner issued his amendatory veto, the
Democratic-controlled Illinois Senate voted to override his veto, supporting
the original bill. Since then, intense negotiations have gone on behind the
scenes in the Illinois House over a compromise.
Among the proposals being floated by Republicans is a tax credit
for parents who send their children to private schools, essentially a voucher
program, funded at $100 million.
At a panel at the City Club of Chicago on August 15, Republican
state senator Jason Barickman offered that one way to end the impasse would be
to restrict collective bargaining rights for teachers in the rest of the state,
putting them on the same level as Chicago teachers, whose own collective
bargaining rights were previously curtailed by the Democrats, in close
collaboration with the Chicago Teachers Union and other teachers unions in the
state.
Outside of restrictions on the topics of collective bargaining to
wages, Barickman also wanted to open up privatizing substantial aspects of
public education, saying, “One of the abilities is for Chicago to use
third-party contractors for the provision of non-instructional services,
whether it be safety, grounds keeping, landscaping or the like.”
In response to the layoffs, not to mention the grave attacks on
education and the farcical education funding reform represented by SB 1, the
Chicago Teachers Union has kept conspicuously silent. Not only have there been
no major protests, the CTU has merely suggested that laid-off teachers attend
the hiring fairs, contributing greatly to teacher demoralization. Teachers
interested in the defense of public education must build independent
rank-and-file committees in a break with the CTU and the AFT, which are allied
with the Democratic Party and abet their crimes against the working class.
JAMES
WALSH –
THE OBAMA HISPANICAZATION of
AMERICA
How the Democrat party
surrendered America to Mexico:
“The
watchdogs at Judicial Watch discovered documents that reveal how the Obama
administration's close coordination with the Mexican government entices
Mexicans to hop over the fence and on to the American dole.” Washington
Times
If you don’t
stand up, nothing happens”
Union isolates
Chicago-area auto mechanics strike in its fourth week
By Jessica Goldstein and George Marlowe
If you don’t
stand up, nothing happens”
Union isolates
Chicago-area auto mechanics strike in its fourth week
By Jessica Goldstein and George Marlowe
22 August 2017
Nearly 2,000 auto mechanics in the International Association of
Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Auto Mechanics Union Local 701 have
entered the fourth week of a strike at auto dealerships in Chicago, Illinois
and the surrounding suburbs. The rank-and-file mechanics are fighting for
better pay and working conditions, but the union has isolated the striking
workers from the wider working class and are seeking to end the strike as
quickly as possible by pushing through a concessions contract.
Auto mechanics in the local work under a byzantine piece rate
system of pay in which they are paid not by the number of hours that they work
on the clock, but by the hourly rate of labor that the auto manufacturer
assigns to each part—which decreases year after year.
Carmello, an apprentice mechanic at a Chicago dealership, spoke to
the WSWS about the reasons why he was out on strike: “Over the past eight
years, we have more diagnostic steps for vehicles, more documentation that’s
required. It all takes more time. And they usually end up cutting down the
rates for the part-labor hours. The current minimum is 34 hours for part-labor
hours. We are asking for hours paid for hours worked.”
Under the current contract, the mechanics are guaranteed only 34
part-labor hours per week, for which they must labor on the clock for at least
40 hours or more. Under the new contract, the union has proposed a 40-hour
part-labor guarantee per week. The proposal won’t do anything to improve the
standard of living for the workers—in practice, it amounts to more work for
less pay, the very conditions against which they have been struggling during
the strike.
“Most of us work hours more than 40 hours a week,” Carmello noted.
“Some of our guys only get paid for an hour for diagnosing when they spend
hours for fixing the problem.”
The contract also fails to address the other forms of exploitation
that mechanics face, such as low wages, exorbitant out-of-pocket costs for
tools, an increase in health insurance costs, and unpaid labor and training.
Christian spoke about the increase of health insurance costs. “For
me,” he said, “the additional cost of health insurance too is something I’m
opposed to. Who’s to say they won’t keep increasing our costs? Now it’s a $5
increase, next time it will be hundreds more.”
He also spoke about high out-of-pocket costs mechanics incur for
education and tools just to get an extremely low-wage job in the industry.
“Some of these guys spend more than $30-40,000 in education. Many of us are
still paying off student loans and tens of thousands of dollars in tools.
“That’s a personal investment just to get into the door. So you
have thousands of dollars in debt just to get a job as a Lube Technician entry
job for $9.50 an hour, less than a McDonald’s worker. Sixteen years later you
may—if you are lucky—become a journeyman. One guy here has been here for 10
years only as a semi-skilled and it may take him a total of 18 years just to
become a journeyman.
“I’d like to see some kind of meaningful progression for younger
guys to advance in the apprenticeship program and make sure we also have a
40-hour guarantee.”
In order to stay in the good graces of the auto dealerships, the
union has also backed down on the 40-hour week guarantee, the very proposal
upon which the contract rested. On Thursday, the union released the following
statement on its web site: “There are several dealers that are being told
inaccurate information regarding the Union’s positions. They are being told the
Union is steadfast on their 40 hour guarantee proposal. That is inaccurate.
Once the dealers contact the Union directly to inquire about this 40 hour
stance that they’re being told along with discussing the outstanding terms that
remain and what the Union is willing to accept results in their subsequent desire
to break from the NCDC [New Car Dealer Committee].”
While workers want to fight for a better standard of living, the
IAM has no intention of doing so, as it functions as a tool of corporate
management.
Earlier this year, in February, a vote by rank-and-file workers at
Boeing’s Commercial Airplanes plant in North Charleston, South Carolina,
rejected the recognition of the IAM as a union at the plant. The workers, 74
percent of whom voted against the union, made the decision based on their
experiences with the betrayals of the IAM, such as stripping workers of the
right to strike, ending company-paid pensions, wage and health care cuts.
In August 2012, Caterpillar workers went on strike in opposition
to the pro-corporate contract put forth by the IAM and the company at the
Joliet, Illinois plant, which ended when workers approved the contract by a
slim majority after a bitter three-and-a-half month strike. The contract forced
upon the workers all of the demands of the company that they had voted down three
months earlier.
The mechanics of Local 701 can expect their struggle to end in the
same way if the strike stays in the hands of the IAM leadership. The union is
clearly doing all that it can to push through the contract and end the strike.
According to the Local 701 web page, dealerships are using intimidation tactics
and police repression to scare workers into crossing the picket line. The union
has made no sincere condemnation of these tactics, and has not given the
workers any means to protect themselves from such intimidation. In the same
post, it reveals, “The Union is earnestly seeking to resolve these open issues
and to end the strike and to get our members back to work.”
The local’s Facebook page reveals the financial distress that
workers’ families are faced with during the strike. As one worker commented, “I
have called the union and they said they were setting up a GoFundMe account.
That isn’t going to be enough for everyone. My husband and I did not have the
means to save due to my ongoing medical issues and were not in the union long
enough to save much. I’m taking up more hours at work but [there] is so much I
can do. Since this is not going anywhere anytime soon, my family needs help.”
Although the local attempts to present itself in a militant light
on its Facebook page, what the workers have to say about their struggles paints
a much different picture. The union, whose bureaucrats enjoy the wealth
generated by union dues and corporate kickbacks, are using the strike to
financially weaken the workers so that they will submit to corporate demands
and end the struggle. Other unions, like the United Auto Workers and United
Steelworkers, have set up GoFundMe pages for workers in financial distress, so
as not to cut into the wealth of the bureaucrats and the unions and to suppress
mounting opposition from the rank-and-file.
“We’re out here to fight,” one of the workers on the picket line
noted. “Like any other revolution, or tide-changing event, it comes from the
people when they have had enough and they stand up. If you don’t stand up,
nothing happens.”
To win their struggle, the mechanics need to break out of the
isolation and stranglehold imposed by IAM and form their own independent
rank-and-file committees to advance their demands. Such demands can only be
advanced by uniting with the struggles of millions of workers in auto, steel,
rail,
and other industries, in the US and internationally against the entire capitalist system in an independent struggle for socialism and the liberation of the working class.
and other industries, in the US and internationally against the entire capitalist system in an independent struggle for socialism and the liberation of the working class.
MEXICO: AMERICA’S DRUG DEALER!
The same period has seen a massive growth of social inequality,
with income and wealth concentrated at the very top of American society to an
extent not seen since the 1920s.
“This study follows reports released over
the past several months documenting rising mortality rates among US workers due
to drug addiction and suicide, high rates of infant mortality, an overall
leveling off of life expectancy, and a growing gap between the life expectancy
of the bottom rung of income earners compared to those at the top.”
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