Strike Back: An Excerpt

Next month, we will be releasing a new and updated edition of Joe Burn’s Strike Back. The book tells the story of the public employee uprising in the 1960s and 1970s, and how that militancy can be used by today’s public employee unions. (Think the 2018 teacher strikes.) Here is Joe’s introduction to the book:

When the first edition of Strike Back was published in 2014, the attacks on public employee unionism were already well underway. Despite a massive grassroots mobilization by Wisconsin public workers in 2011, then Governor Scott Walker rammed through Act 10, which decimated public employee bargaining rights in the state. At the same time, several other states restricted public employee bargaining rights by limiting the subjects of bargaining or otherwise shifting the rules to favor employers.

Since 2014, these attacks have turned into an outright war against public employee unions, with a steady stream of state legislatures restricting bargaining rights. For example, in 2017, Iowa enacted legislation requiring union recertification votes prior to each bargaining cycle, eliminating dues checkoff. While, with tremendous expenditures of effort and resources, public employee unions won the recertification battle in Iowa, the legislation served to consume union resources and tilt the playing field dramatically in favor of employers. Other states have made it more difficult for unions to collect dues as well.

With the election of Donald Trump in 2016, federal employee unions have been in a fight for their very existence, facing a virulently anti-union administration determined to overthrow decades of hard-won gains for public workers. Through executive orders, the administration has sought to kick union activists out of offices they have occupied for decades, eliminate lost time for union business, and overturn years of due process protections for federal workers.  Although public employee unions have won some of the early court battles, there is no sign these attacks will abate.

In addition, privatization efforts have intensified in recent years, with teachers in particular facing relentless attacks through the charter school movement, which uses the guise of reform to destroy public education.  The Trump administration is also is trying to privatize the US Postal Service and threatening to do the same to the Veterans Health Administration, too.

And to top it all off, the most undemocratic institution in the United States, the unelected Supreme Court, has reversed decades of settled law, ruling in 2018 in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees that public employees charging all members of their bargaining unit their full share of fees was unconstitutional.

While attacks are of course never something anyone wants, they do have a way of clarifying things.  For public worker unions today, the issue has become quite simple: fight or die. Choosing the former, many public employee unions are increasingly adopting militancy in their attitudes and tactics. As an example, a new generation of teacher activists are rising up and re-embracing the strike as a central part of their strategy. In the spring of 2018, West Virginia teachers fought back against years of underfunding of their schools, disrespect of their profession, and a system which condemned them to poverty for caring for their students. Their bold action, a statewide strike, captivated nationwide attention and pointed a way forward for the labor movement. Following on their heels, teachers in Oklahoma and Arizona also struck. These strikes in many ways mirrored the militant labor history of the 1960s and 1970s described in this book.  As is often the case, repression spawns resistance.

In many ways, today’s public employee unionists are returning to their roots, looking back to a public worker union movement that was born out of militant, grassroots struggle in the 1960s and 1970s. Half a century ago, a strong, member-driven, aggressive labor movement stormed the halls of power. Public employees defied injunctions, often fought their very own international unions, confronted hostile politicians, as well as a corporate media out to destroy them. And they won.

While the focus of Strike Back is on public employees, private sector workers are also under attack and must figure out how to break free from an increasingly repressive system.  They too need to study the militant history of public workers in the 1960s and 1970s, not just out of solidarity with their public employee brethren, but for their own survival.

Perhaps it’s my background in bargaining for the last several decades, but I am full of hope.  I believe the labor movement in this country will rise again, confronting power and privilege and ultimately providing a better way of life for millions of Americans. That is why the history of public workers in the 1960s and 1970s is so important—because it is at its roots a story of hope and inspiration for workers today.