Stop the UAW sabotage of our strike! No contract, no work!
To oppose the UAW’s attempts to force through another sellout, workers have initiated the Volvo Workers Rank-and-File Safety Committee.
The Volvo Workers Rank-and-File Committee•
Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee
The ERFSC is a network of educators, students, parents, and workers spearheading the fight to stop the spread of COVID-19 through schools and workplaces and save lives.
On this page you can:
GET INVOLVED
• Attend an online meeting
• Join the Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee
READ
• Statements of rank-and-file committees
• Latest updates on the Chicago educators struggle
• Essential reading for educators
MORE
• Subscribe to our email newsletter
• Donate
Attend an online meeting
Saturday, May 8
1:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time
Saturday, May 8
1:00 pm Mountain Daylight Time/2:00 pm Central Daylight Time
Join the Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee!
Contact us now to join the committee nearest you. If there is not already a committee in your area, we will help you get one started.
In the US, we now have rank-and-file committees of educators in New York City, Chicago, California, Texas, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Alabama and Oregon.
We are also connected to committees of rank-and-file educators in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and Sri Lanka.
Don't wait! COVID-19 has spiraled out of control, but thousands of lives can still be saved through urgent action.
Stop front boarding on Berlin buses—prepare strike action!
The decision of the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG, Berlin Transit Company) management to reintroduce front boarding on buses next Monday, despite rising infection figures, is a deliberate provocation and must not be allowed.
Transport Workers' Action Committee for Safe Workplaces (Germany)•
Alabama Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee meeting calls for class unity, supports Warrior Met miners
A powerful meeting sponsored by educators in the Deep South spoke out to support the growing class struggle across the region and nationally.
Shelley Connor, Nancy Hanover•
Meeting of the Network of Action Committees for Safe Education
Support the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees! Attend the ICFI’s May Day rally!
At its latest online meeting, the Network of Action Committees for Safe Education adopted an important resolution.
Gregor Link•
Renae Cassimeda•
Texas Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee•
Cross-Canada Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee•
Our reporters•
Harvey Thompson•
Essential Reading
WSWS healthcare writer Dr. Benjamin Mateus answered critical questions about COVID and ventilation from teachers at a live Q&A organized by the Alabama Rank-and-File Safety Committee.
The 2018 West Virginia teachers strike indicated that the resurgence of class struggle would bring workers into ever more direct and open conflict with the trade unions, which exist to defend capitalism and police the working class.
All over the world the trade unions, including those which were founded through bitter struggles led by socialist-minded workers, now play the leading role in enforcing the dictates of management.
In this lecture, delivered in Sydney, Australia in January, 1998, David North explains this profound transformation through an historical examination of the trade unions themselves.
Red State Revolt, written by New York University doctoral student and member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Eric Blanc, was published by Verso and Jacobin in April 2019. It purports to be a “behind-the-scenes” explanation of the causes and outcomes of the 2018 teacher strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona.
However, as WSWS Educator Newsletter editor Nancy Hannover explains in this critical review, Blanc is unable to explain or even point to the fundamental origins of this movement, precisely because the struggle of teachers did not emerge as a limited rebellion against Republican-controlled (“Red State”) governments.
In reality, Hannover writes, “the strikes were part of an international resurgence of the class struggle against relentless austerity and the historic transfer of wealth to the rich, which governments around the world escalated after the 2008 global financial crash.”
Australian university casuals group tries to divide workers and promote trade unions
A CUPUW “summit” attempted to create a rift between casual and permanent university workers, and seek posts within the National Tertiary Education Union.
Eric Ludlow•
Union sends Oregon Tech faculty back to work with sellout agreement
Oregon Tech American Association of University Professors (OT-AAUP) is celebrating the agreement as a “historic first contract,” but in reality, it is a sellout contract that will be used to enforce job insecurity, inadequate pay and unsafe work conditions over its five-year period.
Kayla Costa, David Fitzgerald•
UK teachers oppose attacks on pay, conditions, pensions and government’s push for Academisation of schools
A spate of disputes in education have broken out, despite every effort by the unions to suppress opposition.
Margot Miller•
NYU graduate student strike enters second week as GSOC-UAW makes concessions
The university administration is clearly waiting for the end of the semester next week at NYU in the expectation that the union will deliver further concessions.
Clara Weiss, John Conrad•
Patrick Kelly•
Ken Lagerfeld•
Tamino Dreisam, Joshua Seubert•
Genevieve Leigh•
Alex Johnson•
More
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Join our Facebook Group
Join the discussion with hundreds of educators, students, parents, and other workers from across the country and around the world in the Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee Facebook Group.
The WSWS is the most powerful tool in history for the revolutionary education and organization of the international working class.
“The Chicago teachers are the voice of educators internationally. They want to go into remote learning, and that's exactly what should happen.”
“Because in this committee there's a bunch of other educators who are feeling the same way, not only in New York but on the national level. So what can we do as educators nationally to come up with a plan?”
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the term “rank-and-file” mean and where does it come from?
“Rank-and-file” is originally a military term. It refers to the lower “ranks” of soldiers, who literally stand in lines or “files”. These soldiers have a different set of interests in preserving their lives than the officers or “brass” who prosecute the wars on behalf of the ruling elite.
Rank-and-file committees are of, by and for the rank-and-file workers, who have a different set of interests in preserving their lives than management, the bosses, the politicians, and the trade union apparatus, who send workers to die while defending the profits of the ruling elite.
Is it legal to build rank-and-file committees of educators and other workers to stop the spread of COVID-19?
Yes. The formation of rank-and-file committees is 100% completely legal under the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
The right to freedom of speech means you can say whatever you like about what you agree or disagree with. Freedom of association, also covered under the first amendment, means you have the right to associate with others who share your views, for political ends. You also have the right to petition the government for redress, to make demands on the government and tell them what you want them to do.
Does HIPAA law prevent schools or workplaces from disclosing information about the spread of COVID-19?
No. HIPAA has an exception for disclosures to prevent and control the spread of disease, but the state is deliberately not invoking this exception in order to conceal information from workers, so that they can pretend that what they are doing is safe when it’s not.
Rank-and-file educators have the right to know who’s gotten sick, where, when, and what happened. Rank-and-file committees have to demand this information, and have to share it with other workers as a matter of collective self defense.
