History is still alive today... Labor Beat's 2015 story 'A Financial Crisis Created To Justify Cuts'... Video explaining how ruling class creates a crises to justify staff cuts remains alive and relevant today...
In remembrance of Larry Duncan and in preparation for the attacks from employers on workers here is a great video made a few years ago on how employers create a crises that diverts money to justify cuts to resources and workers. Here is the video link.
https://youtu.be/csvwxwXJ6DQ
Labor Beat documents the wave of protests against Chicago Public Schools’ in mid-summer of 2015. This includes -- in addition to Local School Councils protests -- a large, complex rally in front of the CPS monthly board meeting on July 22, involving both the Chicago Teachers Union and charters schools groups denouncing the cuts in funding. Following the action in front of the CPS, a teachers union contingent walks a few blocks south to join a protest organized by SEIU Healthcare Illinois/Indiana. That took place in front of Ken Griffin’s Citadel building. They denounced billionaires like Griffin who get away with paying puny taxes, thus fueling the statewide funding problems for child care. Everyone’s coming to the same conclusion: the financial crisis is not an act of nature, but by the design of millionaires and billionaires who write the laws.
CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey clearly drew the picture: “We refuse to accept the logic of this financial crisis as if it were a weather system that blew in on the winds. It did not blow in on the winds. It blew in on the backs of bankers and politicians that made it blow in. It’s by design...We are not willing to accept the financial titans who run this system who have plenty of wealth. Is there anyone here who doesn’t believe they have plenty of wealth? Look around you. They have built buildings to the sky as monuments to their wealth and power.”
Others commenting in the video: Kyle Hillman, LSC Gale Elementary; Laurie Viets, LSC Beard Elementary; Christine Broderick, teacher; Katie Osgood, citywide teacher; Jackson Potter, CTU Staff Coordinator; Ed Hershey, teacher at Lindblom HS; Tuykira Taylor, student at Kelly HS; Chris Baehrend, VP Local 4343 ACTS; Myron Perlman, retired union carpenter; Faith Arnold, SEIU Healthcare Illinois/Indiana.
[John Kugler is the Teamsters 743 shop steward of the CTU Staff Union]
