Oakland strike, mass “sickout” in Kentucky
Teacher anger exploding across the United States
By
Nancy Hanover
1 March 2019
Teacher strikes continue to escalate against a brutal drive by big business for the privatization of education and the further plundering of the “edu-market” for profit-taking. American teachers are part of a growing global movement against government austerity and social inequality.
Now in the seventh day of their strike, 3,000 teachers in Oakland, California are in the forefront. Crucially, educators there have formed a rank-and-file strike committeeto assert the interests of teachers independent of the union and fight to broaden their strike by reaching out statewide and nationally to prepare a general strike against the bipartisan attack on public education.
Thousands of teachers in Kentucky carried out a sickout and demonstration at the state capitol in Frankfort to defend pensions, resuming the protests which they carried out last March and April of last year. That job action led to the cancellation of classes for 168,000 students in some of the state’s two largest school districts, Jefferson (Louisville) and Fayette (Lexington), and six others.
While the Kentucky Education Association sought to subordinate the protest to its maneuvers with state Republicans and Democrats to retain its influence on the state pension board, teachers are not only angered over the attack on their retirement benefits but the same issues driving educators into struggle everywhere: low pay, underfunded schools and over-crowded classes.
In a statement posted on the “KY 120 United Facebook Thursday morning, the group said, “We show up every day in the classroom with a lot of passion, but…