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elleng

(130,126 posts)
Fri Mar 9, 2018, 01:52 PM Mar 2018

West Virginia Walkouts a Lesson in the Power of a Crowd-Sourced Strike.

*Experts say the West Virginia teachers may foreshadow the future of organized labor, especially in the public sector, at a time when its power has been eroded in much of the country by anti-union legislation and by court challenges like the Janus case, now before the Supreme Court, which threatens the financial viability of collective bargaining.

Public employees in other states have taken notice. Teachers in Oklahoma have been talking about mounting a West Virginia-style statewide walkout in early April if the Legislature does not raise their pay by then. In Kentucky, a pending bill to reduce pensions for retired teachers has prompted protests and talk of strikes.

“Unions have tended throughout most of their histories to be forces that seek stability, not unrest,” said Joseph A. McCartin, a labor historian at Georgetown University. “When they are weakened, we’re more likely to see the re-emergence of instability and militancy, and the kind of model that we’re seeing happen in West Virginia.”'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/us/west-virginia-teachers-strike.html?

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