The Educators Rank-and-File Committee is an international network of educators, students, parents, and workers fighting for workers power in the schools, to stop the capitalist destruction of public education and eliminate COVID-19.
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Victoria, the country’s second-largest public education system, sits at the centre of a crisis, with some of the lowest school funding and wages after more than 11 years of a state Labor government.
On the eve of the largest coordinated strike in UC history, the University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) has moved to divide the ranks.
The longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers and leading Democratic Party figure is incapable of presenting a historical and scientific analysis of fascism, let alone a proposal for educators to fight it.
The pay deal will be linked to productivity and further cuts to an education system already facing a recruitment crisis, crumbling buildings, lack of SEND (special needs) places and with schools forced to provide social and food provision to deal with a child poverty crisis.
“The path forward lies in organizing independently—through the creation of rank-and-file committees democratically controlled by nurses themselves—to wage a genuine fight for your demands.”
For those reading this in Canada thinking this explosion happened in the US and thankfully it cannot happen here, they should look soberly at what our current prime minister is doing without any real pushback, and our experience at the National Steel Car plant in Hamilton, Ontario.
The trillions hoarded by the billionaires must be expropriated and used to meet social needs: secure, well-paid jobs for all, healthcare, housing, education, and the eradication of hunger and poverty.
The vote’s outcome underlines the urgent necessity of flight attendants at Air Canada and across North America, as well as workers in every economic sector, establishing their organizational and political independence from the trade union bureaucracy.
“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.
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.
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.
