Obama Acts Like Reagan 1981, the Union-Buster

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford



“Obama is is going after the teachers unions with a hatchet – just like Reagan went after the air traffic controllers.”

President Obama’s endorsement of the firing of the entire faculty and staff of a Rhode Island public school is reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s crushing of the air traffic controllers union, nearly three decades ago. Back then, President Reagan made an example of a union that had supported his presidential candidacy, firing its members and ultimately decertifying the union when it went on strike. The move sent a signal to the bosses in all sectors of the U.S. economy: the president – the U.S. government – is on management’s side, and unions are a considered a threat to the general economic welfare.

Last week, President Obama sent the same kind of signal to teachers unions, when he cited the Central Falls, Rhode Island, school shutdown as an example of the “accountability” he is demanding of poorly performing schools – which invariably means poor, non-white schools. Teachers union leaders appeared to be shocked by Obama’s language and tone – but they shouldn’t have been. The Rhode Island mass firing was not substantively different than the wholesale sacking of teachers and abrogation of their union contracts elsewhere in the country. The fundamental logic of Obama’s so-called Race to the Top program – a multi-billion dollar competition to show which states are most willing to fire teachers, shut down classrooms and replace them with charter schools – is to break the teachers union. If the teachers want to save their union, their dignity, their contracts, and the institution of public education, they will have to break with Obama. Because he is going after them with a hatchet – just like Reagan went after the air traffic controllers, despite their having supported his 1980 candidacy.

“Obama takes Bush's No Child Left Behind scheme to its logical, blood on the floor conclusion.”
Obama's hatchet man and basketball buddy is Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who envisions waves of school closings, teacher firings and charter school openings for the next “five or six years.” That sounds like a kind of “final solution” for teachers unions – and for public education.

Obama's plans for America's classrooms are even more aggressive than George Bush's policies. Obama takes Bush's No Child Left Behind scheme to its logical, blood on the floor conclusion: corporate education without the encumbrances of organized teachers. Obama's anti-union vision is more ambitious than that of the old arch-reactionary, Ronald Reagan, who destroyed a union of only 13,000 members. The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association have combined memberships of over 4 million. They have the capacity to fight back, to make this president back off. But, like so many others who drank the Obama Kool Aid, they are in denial, refusing to believe that they backed a union-buster who is making teachers the scapegoat for America's historical failure to serve the educational needs of all its children.

more . . . http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama-acts-reagan-1981-union-buster

Who are we allowed to like now? The list seems pretty small these days.

I vehemently disagree with the education policy of this admin., but I will not resort to applauding the glenn beck of the left to do so. Especially when virtually every liberal disagrees with this decision and thoughtful criticism is not hard to come by.

"glen is an asshole." That was actually helpful.

:rofl:

this is who you pick--the guy who said:

"Barack Obama is true-blue to the slaveholding forefathers and heroic blond mothers of the storybook U.S. of A"

The full insanity at link
http://hiphopnews.yuku.com/topic/600

Politically risky? Ummmm, yeah.

I said that to a kid just today. But he was 8. LOL

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Clinton called himself an Eisenhower Republican. So should not be surprised that Obama is following that same path but with Reagan.

Glen Ford is an ass!

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten gets into the fray with this statement:

"President Obama's comments today condoning the mass firing of the Central Falls High School teachers do not reflect the reality on the ground and completely ignore the teachers' significant commitment to working with others to transform this school. We know it is tempting for people in Washington to score political points by scapegoating teachers, but it does nothing to give our students and teachers the tools they need to succeed."

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2010/03/obama_gets_invovled_in_ri_teac.html

And the NEA:

UPDATED: National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel gets in on the game:

"It's time for federal officials to get out of the blame game and into the classroom. One thing is certain: Firing the entire faculty of a school that is on the path to improvement is no recipe for turning around a struggling high school. And relying on a magical pool of 'excellent teachers' to spring forth and replace them is naïve at best and desperately misguided. ... In reality, we all know that the solution is not blame, it is collaboration...collaboration among school employees, management, parents and communities."

to an actual AFT statement





NEA president says it's time to renew our promise to children

From your link:

AFT:


NEA:


And a joint statement on the Central Falls firings which Obama applauded: http://www.nea.org/home/38247.htm

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/03/03/AFL-CIO-backs-RI-teachers-against-Obama/UPI-16531267641673/


Angry students protest cuts to schools, colleges
Posted: Mar 04, 2010 9:36 AM PST

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - Anger over rising tuition and school budget cuts boiled over as students across the country staged rowdy demonstrations that led to clashes with police and the rush-hour shutdown of a major freeway in California.

Students, teachers, parents and school employees rallied and marched at college campuses, public parks and government buildings in several U.S. cities Thursday in what was called the March 4 Day of Action to Defend Public Education.

In Oakland, protesters evaded police and walked onto Interstate 880 near downtown Oakland just before 5 p.m., forcing the closure of the freeway in both directions for more than an hour and causing traffic to back up for miles.

Is that dude still around? Still bitter about Green Cynthia McKinney not winning, I guess.

Those teachers just don't know what's good for them. What an ass.

:eyes:

:eyes:

I guess it's okay to do that when you don't post a link.

He kept trying to compare himself to Reagan.

That's why I refused to donate or become active in his Prez campaign. I voted for him in the CT primary because I despised Hillary more and he was the only one viable at the time to defeat her. I did have the feeling that Obama would become Bill Clinton ver 2.0 and I was right. It didn't take long for Obama to fill his Admin with leftover Clintonistas.

And if Bush were doing all this, people in here would be totally up in arms about it.

& illogical, besides. firing teachers = more jobs? in which universe?

:sarcasm:

This isn't a pillow fight.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

In recent decades in the U.S., businesses, the right-wing, and many politicians have been dedicated to destroying the unions...

The best way to destroy a union is to arrest, deport, or kill the leaders, something our country has done in the past during times of union struggle. The Palmer Raids around the turn of the last century symbolize that tactic.

Another good way to bust unions is to import workers from other countries who are willing to work for a lot less money, which has the effect of increasing unemployment among the locals, and decreasing wages and benefits... Of course the reverse of importing foreign workers is simply moving the jobs to third world countries, something which has been supported by our politicians passing laws to give special tax breaks to businesses that take American jobs out of this country. Hard to believe these politicians, working against the people of this country. But they receive kick-backs and bribes from the businesses.

Another tactic sometimes used to destroy unions and force millions into lower-paid work is to simply use the government to bust the union. Reagan did it in 1981 when he fired all the Patco (air traffic controllers) union workers. Reagan used to be a union man himself, but switched teams and became a rabid right-wing anti-union goon. So who else, what other president would stoop so low as to use the office of the White House to bust unions? How about Barack Obama?

Barack Obama has just issued a bounty offer to school districts around the country, encouraging them to fire all their teachers and turn their districts over to the for-profit Wal-Mart style private schools commonly called Charter Schools...The Charter Schools are private, for-profit businesses. They aim to eliminate public education entirely, and send our kids to Wal-Mart centers where they will watch videotapes, memorize test questions and answers, and learn to be sedantary non-thinking obedient little soldiers. Soldiers in the army of Wal-mart, or perhaps Blackwater will get into the education business.

Charter Schools don't hire union teachers. When a public school is closed, the contract with the teacher's union is terminated or breached. The students are sent to Charter Schools which hire non-union teachers, often pay them radically lower wages with poor benefits. This is an effort to eliminate teaching as a field in which people in this country have been able to make a decent living. It is also an effort to eliminate education as a goal, and substitute warehousing and control mechanisms for learning...

Obama's now offering $900 Million of taxpayer money to be given to any school district that fires their teachers and/or shuts down their nonperforming schools, and sends their kids over to a Wal-mart-style for-profit educational warehousing system otherwise known as a Charter School. Recent studies show that 17% of the students sent to Charter schools do better than they did in public school, which means that for 83% of the kids, it's either the same or worse. Somebody's making money off of this, but it is not helping the kids...

It will result in the elimination of one more field in which people in this country were allowed to earn a decent living. Give it some time, and teachers will be like all other Wal-mart workers: poorly paid, temporary, and hopeless. What a shame.

http://nabnyc.blogspot.com/2010/03/reagan-busted-air-traffic-controllers.html

if a particular school keeps failing the students, it needs to go.

Stick to the links.

Do you get rid of hospitals because they haven't eliminated sickness and death? Fire all the doctors?

Smaller classes, better funding not tied to bogus test scores. That would be where I'd begin.

just the bad apples.

And yes bad hospitals go out of business on their own.
And bad doctors are known to suffer due to bad reputation.

Do you have a working definition?

And while there might be a hospital closing here and there, you do not see the massive closings that we are currently being faced with in the schools. Also, doctors don't get fired "en masse" and have it be praised by the President of the United States as a solution to some "crisis" no one seems to be able to define.

Gotta wonder what impact they have on test scores. :crazy:

The massive amount of strange illogical firings. Arne and company have sold this magical narrative as the "practical" solution. Maybe the facilities workers don't count as people to some, and therefore can be disregarded in these slash and burn "solutions"

That's what they usually do.

Back to the district running the services. Privatization was a mess.

My superintendent was pushing me to investigate it a few years back. I was able to avoid it by digging up lots of stories about the lies the privatizers told people. Close call.

So the employees who worked for the school district were managed by the contractors. That alone was a HUGE mess.

It'd be a nightmare.

let's spread the resonsiblity around. Kids don't fail because of teachers, they fail when their parents don't value education

why only certain schools fail more often than others?

I think the president is right on this.

maybe if particular students keep failing to avoid being premature little douchebags, THEY need to go --

maybe if a particular CULTURE keeps transmogrifying its young people into over-entitled, self-absorbed, shallow little shits, --- well, maybe we should do something about that too. :shrug:

they need to go as well.

The schools doing the worst are in the poorest areas with the least support. So why not scapegoat ALL the teachers instead of digging deeper to look at what is really causing the problems for these kids and their families? It's expedient and then the politicians wouldn't have to look in the mirror. The parents and families won't have to look in the mirror - we won't either.

Reminds me of Katrina - those who had to fight to survive had the least $$ but they are easier to ignore and push to the side. Once the nation saw it on the tube, it was a little harder to deny.

and do like in China where the state takes over.

in the first place. Nice try, Mr. 250-posts!

:hi:

but the issue is not who does it, the point is it might
not be a bad idea to take bad parents out of the picture.
Such as drug addicts, felons, child abusers etc.

Solidarity all the way. You cannot be a Democrat without supporting Unions 100%

I go for that Lots of scabs around

Let's get four-square behind our brothers and sisters and push this health care reform package across the finish line.

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/labor/big-union-warns-dems-if-you-dont-back-reform-we-wont-back-you/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3mc-NTc4is

/nt

Thanks for the link though.

Guess which group I'm describing.

Just guess which industry could be so incredibly corrupt, and have so much contempt for their customers that they could behave so atrociously.

Guess which group I am describing?

While disgusting, banks can still pay out the bonuses. Nobody likes it but you can't stop it. And unfortunately, when the Bush administration put the tarp funds in place, they didn't put constraints on the money.

Teacher unions are definitely good things EXCEPT when they seek to protect teachers from doing what they should be doing for the kids. If you don't get it done between 8 and 3, you should have to stay afterschool and catch kids up.

yet they aren't held accountable.

But schools are.

Interesting, eh?

and my personal banker told me they have paid back all of the TARP
money, so they are no longer under government control.

I've tried that over the years and run into the parental brick wall!! The parents won't allow it!!!

Damn, some people . . .

Budget cuts :)

no-good teachers who refuses to work one more hour a day. Let's forget that most teachers don't make NEAR $70,000/yr, they work 10-12+ hours a day already, pay for school supplies out of their own pockets, and three months off a year?? Haha!! Right.

Here is California pay:
Average teacher salary: $63,640

Average beginning teacher salary: $35,506
http://www.teachersalaryinfo.com/average-teacher-salary-california.html

Kansas:
Average teacher salary: $49,506

Average beginning teacher salary: $33,580

So where this $70,000/yr comes from, I have no idea.

Oh! And how could I forget Rhode Island?:

Average teacher salary: $53,473

Average beginning teacher salary: $32,902

Those selfish, inconsiderate, greedy teachers.

let's not forget that.

With the Rhode Island salary I figure it was approximately $35/hr. based on on 8-9 hour day for 40 weeks/yr. That doesn't include the time they put in planning and grading work at night, and planning in the summer, etc.

I can't imagine somewhere where the average is $70K.

If the teacher has a doctorate and has been there for 30-40 years they will get paid that. Who in the hell would begrudge them that? It's obviously way above the mean.

he'd fund NCLB but now he wants to push charter schools and do other reforms and he doesn't neccessarily care about fighting unions to do it. This is really going to hurt teachers and make a bad job more miserable. There's nothing wrong with public schools other than they're underfunded and usually the first thing to get cut in bad economic times.

And no amount of denial will change that.

I heard Frances Gallo on NPR and she said that all new hires would be teacher's union. And she's swamped with resumes.

In fact, the complaint with the state labor board filed by the teacher's union doesn't dispute that rehires will be union.