The USA in many ways has reverted to the Gilded Age of the 1890s, in which the economic and political systems are operated for the benefit of big business and a tiny group of rich people.
The striking West Virginia teachers are in the same boat as workers in the 1890s. Their strike is illegal. They are outside the protection of the National Labor Relations Act. Anytime they strike, their whole futures are at risk
All they have going for them are their own solidarity and courage, and the support of public opinion and other workers. But they have forced the Governor of West Virginia to agree to their 5 percent pay raise. They still haven’t won a rollback in health insurance increases.
There is a lot to be learned in the way the West Virginia teachers organized their movement. They organized all the public school employees, not just the teaching staff. They reached out to parents and students, to make sure no student would go hungry for lack of a school lunch.
I have long believed that things in the USA cannot go on as they are forever, and I have long looked for signs of change—the Wisconsin public employees’ demonstrations, the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign.
All these movements, in their different ways, represented working people striving for something better. All were beaten back. Is the West Virginia teachers’ strike the breakthrough? We’ll see.
LINKS
The Lesson From West Virginia Teachers: If You Want to Win, Go on Strike by Miles Kampf-Lassin for In These Times.
Notes on the West Virginia Teachers’ Strike of 2018 by Lambert Strether for naked capitalism.
Lessons, Successes, Failures of the West Virginia Teachers Strike by Bruce A. Dixon for Black Agenda Report [Added 3/8/2018]
Phil Ebersole's Blog 
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