Unionization Key To Closing Racial Wage Gap

Turns out busting public schools is NOT the secret recipe to closing the racial wage gap:

A study released on Friday, noting the gains made by black union workers in New York City, said that raising the rate of unionization among black workers across the country would help narrow the racial pay gap.

The study, conducted by two professors affiliated with the Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the City University of New York, which issued the report, described high unionization rates for black workers who live in the city compared with national rates.

Nearly 40 percent of black workers who are city residents are union members, compared with roughly 13 percent of black workers nationally.

The difference between the rates of black and nonblack unionization is also especially pronounced in New York City. The black unionization rate is nearly double that of nonblacks in the city, a difference that is much smaller nationally.

The authors, Ruth Milkman and Stephanie Luce, found that black union members enjoyed higher wages than black nonunion workers, and were also likely to have better access to employer-sponsored health care benefits and pensions.

“Unionism offers black workers a substantial economic advantage in regard to earnings — to a greater degree than is the case for nonblacks, reflecting the fact that larger numbers of blacks than nonblacks are employed in low-wage jobs,” the study said.

Gee, who'd a thunk it?

Workers with union protections and wages have economic advantages that workers without union protections and wages have.

Maybe reformers should try to stop trying to bust the public school "monopoly" and push for union jobs if they actually care about closing the racial wage gap.

But they don't actually care about any such thing.

The rhetoric around closing the racial achievement gap or racial wealth gap is just the cover story for their real aim - the privatization of the school system and the busting of the teachers unions.

Randi Weingarten And The Day Of Action

Gates Foundation cash-flushed Randi Weingarten is advertising a "Day of Action" to save public education tomorrow.

As I told Randi on twitter (a conversation you can see here), she's full of crap over this "save public education" stuff since she's done so much to wreck it herself - from signing off on the Race to the Top reforms, caving on tying teacher evaluations to test scores, carrying water for the Common Core Federal Standards, and doing business with education reform criminals like Chris Cerf to agree to voodoo VAM measurements like the infamous Teacher Data Reports in NYC that saw teachers have their names splashed in the papers under headlines like "Worst Teacher In NYC."

The other heads of the unions - Van Roekel, Mulgrew, Iannuzzi - are full of crap too, so this is not just aimed at Weingarten.

But she's the most visible of the union leaders, the one who makes it to the Andrew Cuomo education reform commissions and MSNBC panels on education reform, so I reserve extra special disdain for her.

This Day of Action is all about Weingarten - just like so many other things involving the AFT and the UFT when she was the head (remember when she grabbed the microphone from a nine year old boy at the commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington so she could take back the spotlight?)

If Weingarten wants to save public education, she can start by stepping down from the AFT, getting the hell off the reform committees, cease doing the reform panels that frame teachers as the problem in schools and dropping the Gates Foundation cash that makes the AFT into a subsidiary of the Bill Gates reform movement.

Good For The CTU And Chicago Teachers

That was a really great job getting concessions from Rahmbo on work hours, new hires and recalls.

But as CTU President Karen Lewis said:

"This is movement in the right direction, but let me make this very clear, this does not settle the outstanding and mandatory issues in the contract,” said Lewis. “In order to get us where we are today it took a march of nearly 10,000 educators, a strike authorization vote and a fact-finder’s report to get CPS to move on this issue. This is yet another example of the CTU’s determination and dedication to fighting for solutions that will strengthen our schools.”

Kudos to her and the CTU leadership for knowing that victories in small skirmishes do not mean the war is over.

Note to UFT: Turnaround school battle is NOT over.

Bloomberg, Walcott and the DOE are going to do everything in their power to destroy those schools before Bloomberg goes.

That means you guys have to stand up for those schools and make sure they are given the resources and support to survive and thrive.