Bonus: L.A. Teachers’ Strike

I'm wondering if this is some high-risk high-investment spamming move where you actually spend 5$ to advertise in here because you are guaranteed we're paypigs

etienne

Red Scare ass comment

Logan

It sure is now let's see those titties.

Poppy Chulo

<p style="color: #008600;">It was a pretty constructive conversation. Thanks. It's sad that strikes still happen in the world...</p>

VitAnyaNaked

I've come to think a necessary element in the strike is to try and prepare the ground for a co-op or some kind of direct selling of the services by labor. In the case of teachers, I always have thought of it in terms of baby sitting. Where I think a typical rate for a professional accredited sitter might be $20/hr. So for a class of 20 that should be like $400/hr for 8hrs is $3200/day per teacher. Ideally the union would take up the organization for this. In this way unions could take the strike as an opportunity to transition into a worker lead enterprise/co-op. For teachers I'd hope parents would comprehend the value they are actually receiving so they could vote for wages to be reasonably calibrated and funded by the state. Unfortunately wages are a small part of a much broader failure of child rearing, but if teachers aren't paid enough their input and belief in viable change won't manifest. In my view each teacher should have no more than 6 pupils. Particularly as they get older.

K H

People who think teachers get paid enough need to spend at least one month teaching their class. Especially with how INSANE people were after the pandemic. I’m quite certain that our incredible elementary principal took a job at the district at the end of last year b/c of all the shit she had to take. It was absolutely astonishing, and we don’t even live in a loco maga area, not by a long shot. And let me say, the kids were not alright, lol. Teachers had their hands full taming our feral treasures.

Jessica S

School choice is suuuucks. They have terrible oversight and create way more disparities than exist in public school. Of course, I’m sure this is not a bug, but a feature. Students don’t need choices, they need schools to be properly funded.

Jessica S

No one has practical knowledge of how to organize or labor wouldn't be losing and have been losing for 40 years. I'm going by what they said in the interview, and if teachers in LA are making $20k/year that is losing. I get wanting to pursue a known strategy, I understand being afraid of straying from trends, I understand it's uncomfortable conveying to people a new way of thinking, I get voting for democrats. It just does not work. If you ask for less there is less to overcome the fear of escalating action and the consequences of failure keep increasing until the cure may kill you. Maybe I clocked it wrong and teacher unions have been winning, but I'm just going by what was stated here.

K H

These fucking dipshit pmc elite liberals and conservative fucks are standing on a wooden plank over a chasm, and can’t saw through the plank fast enough

William

You think you understand negotiation and you show absolutely zero practical knowledge about how real collective action works. Cool. All the empathy and understanding of people in this situation of a typical internet commenter, who thinks their experience is and should be the same as everyone else’s

William

Solidarity. ✊🏼

E G

I see no contradiction or contrast at all. No the teachers are not empathetic, because if they were they would understand the need to be more ruthless. A teacher can be a right wing Trump supporter, the important thing is they recognize their personal value and the fact that poverty ultimately hurts their own children, and spouse, and that ultimately the poverty of their profession serves the aims of the sicko pedophiles. I'm always hopeful but what I'm seeing is teachers striking for poverty wages and solar panels. To me that looks like struggle without victory and that is something people tire of. That has been the playbook of the Democratic party and it has lead us to this precipice. On the practical individual level, these teachers can not afford their jobs. I assume they sell drugs and their ass in LA and 20% on $20k will not change that. If teachers concede lower pay than cops they're already surrendering themselves and the children.

K H

It's true teachers are too empathetic toward those who destroy their working conditions. They should be more ruthless. Compare your own point to what you were saying higher up. Blessed !

Riley Bloomer-Ludwig

So mindsets and traditions exist, so do human beings. Seriously go organize a strike. You'll find out that some women are more right-wing than some men. Maybe your boss is even a woman. Maybe Kamala Harris even threatens to send your students' parents to jail. People are complicated. As depressing as reality can be, it's thankfully much more hopeful than this kind of Bachelor's degree serotonine-syndrome rhetoric would imply.

Riley Bloomer-Ludwig

I understand that. I'm saying the traits that make a good teacher(like caring if people you don't really know like you) make for a weak bargaining group. The superintendent knows teachers don't like it, they don't care. The board knows and they don't care. Just as executives don't care if you literally cry buying eggs or gas. Teachers are the only ones in the chain letting feeling bad limit their actions. You're going to screw over parents in the short term, no way around it. The way to get a normal brained person to get past that is by having an objective. That's one way you can have "nice" people make decisions that decimate human life. Have a clear objective that is equal to the hardship necessary to win. That objective is going to make people angry because it bucks the trend of expectation, which in this case is impoverished teachers, teachers losing. Striking to stay at the poverty line is a waste of time. Just because they made you fight doesn't mean you won anything meaningful. Taxes are going to need to go up or elected representatives need to ask for more federal funding. Unions must become political animals and that involves pissing people off until they get with the program and direct their vitriol at the right people. No one has ever felt bad for a doormat because they don't even think about walking on it. If this is where the rule has lead you, of what use was the rule? People hear that they're running a losing strategy. They think losing is bad. They think if losing is bad then I'm bad. I can't be bad so I must not be running a losing strategy. Teachers are good, I want them to win.

K H

At least for teachers, it's the difference between striking with the support of parents or striking without it, which might have a bigger effect on feelings than anything practical, but morale counts for something in a strike. For teachers, parental support has a huge impact on what your job is like if you hope to get it back post-strike. Plus, the LA school board is publicly elected, and publicly accessible. So even though the superintendent/board doesn't have to listen to "the public," I would imagine they're more susceptible to public pressure than a typical CEO/board.

kwrob

Can we share this outside of Patreon? I don't see it on the Chapo YT channel.

Curtis Dyer

They aren't. They're directly intertwined with what it "traditionally" means to be a man. Toxic masculinity I believe they call it. A mindset diametrically opposed to class consciousness, collective action, and a life valuing emotional well being of those around you as opposed to domination. Maybe your male coded upbringing was different and implied different conclusions. Blessed.

K H

What material effect does the public have on the institution you're negotiating against?

K H

It's almost as if class consciousness and "men are fucking idiots" are completely opposed principles.

Riley Bloomer-Ludwig

Thanks for the lesson ! It's almost as if striking with public support and striking without it are the same thing with the same chances of success. If you've ever tried to organize a strike, you will know that it's not, though.

Riley Bloomer-Ludwig

Educator here. Love this, thank you, Will. As I was listening at the gym, all MSM was covering the strike and were framing it as illegal and as a rationale for "school choice".

Warbs

I don't know what that means. Also I'm gay.

K H

This is a reddit tier comment. "Men bad, yikes sweaty! Funko pops!"

Poppy Chulo

Give me my Waco-Lago tomorrow.

Sean McGrier

It should be stated that "turning the public" against striking workers is mostly just to make you feel bad for striking(with some political angle). If public opinion meant anything, what would that do to CEO compensation? Public opinion doesn't mean a fucking thing. All that matters is the time the (usually a business)system can withstand the shock of absent labor and what alternatives do they have. I will never feel bad for striking because some beaten down hog thinks I should make less because they make less. If you strike, go for broke so you actually save enough to strike again and achieve some real change within the system, and don't need to go begging to the public. Bigger strikes between different labor groups making more sweeping demands is the way forward. Have a logical objective, not just spiraling slower into debt. Striking to simply remain at the poverty line is fucking stupid. You strike to escape poverty not to stay there.

K H

get over it

SF

Hell yea dude.

K H

Holding out hope professions dominated by women will have the balls to actually put some fear into capital, unlike all the men "greatful to have a job" because they're fucking idiots. Nurse-teacher coalition could absolutely bring class consciousness to the forefront and capital to its knees, especially now. Jesus. They are asking for way way too little. That doesn't garner respect or increase success. You don't get points for seeming reasonable, you're made to live with less. Either you have leverage or you don't. I got a 20% raise while already making way more for doing a way easier and arguably significantly less important job than teaching children. This shit is made up. Ask for a 200% raise minimum. They will always give you less than you reach for. Let their dumbass kids worship Xi on TikTok if they won't allow the dignity of a good wage. I wouldn't get out of bed for $20k in America. I'd just move, why stay here?

K H

man, Amber should be serving this slop.

A Witherspoon

I'm a Special Ed Assistant. The job has completely melted my sanity in the past few years and no one even seems to know what I do for a living. Heartening to even get a shout out when education labour is being discussed

Harry P. Ness

I make 24k a year on my disability pension welfare payments in Australia plus extra benefits like cheap medicine and free doctors bulk billed on medicare... wtf is going on over there. revolution already

I’m gonna buy some dang tacos for teachers! UPDATE: Tacos bought!

Rohmer Simpson