Texas Mural’s Ideas Transform Into Education Struggle

TEXAS, January 13—A recent school and community art project has galvanized working-class struggle here. A widely viewed, student-created mural of a mass of students, parents and workers fighting back against the racist inequalities in our school district inspired teachers to organize and fight back.
Class Struggle Imitates Art
After weeks of conversation about the mural, teachers issued a collective statement that cited student concerns about district budget cuts and the school-to-prison pipeline. The teachers then made a plan to deliver the bold statement at the next local school board meeting. In a period of intensifying fascism and fear, this was no small feat.
At the meeting, nearly 20 teachers, students, parents and community members confronted the school board. Standing united, they called out the injustice of ongoing district budget cuts and made demands that the board restore programs cut years ago. One after another, they exposed the board’s lies about providing students with a quality and equal education.
One grandparent and Progressive Labor Party member denounced the entire school board as a corrupt gang of racists. He stated that their complicity in keeping the school district in a perpetual state of crisis served capitalism by forcing underserved students into a lifetime of low-wage work, the military or prison.
This inspiring event revealed the potential of working-class unity. The teachers, students and parents who stood together got a glimpse of working-class power. When the working-class is united and armed with a communist analysis, the potential is enormous.  
Liberal Union Bosses Pacify, Then Betray
This struggle, organized with rank-and-file teacher leadership, stands in sharp contrast to the misleadership of the union bosses. The following month, the school board announced an “emergency meeting” to vote on a new district health insurance plan. Given the last-minute timing of the meeting, teachers were unable to organize a rank-and-file response, and relied on their local union bosses.
The union misleaders first called on members to attend the meeting and pressure the school board to increase the district’s contribution to the health plan. But the three health plan options presented to the board all had higher rates than last year. No matter what plan the board chose, teachers were facing a pay cut!
In the ensuing discussion, board members who’d been endorsed by the union expressed their “regret” in raising the rates and explained that we all had to “sacrifice.” Several teachers yelled at the board in anger, but the union misleaders could only beg for a few more crumbs.
In the end, the board voted on the “least bad” option, which still raised rates and cut wages. While many teachers felt betrayed by the board, the more dangerous betrayal came from their own union, which pacified and misled the teachers to prevent them from fighting back. In practice, the union’s actions led to acceptance of the school board’s attacks.
Lessons Learned
The experience of these events highlights the opportunities involved in seizing and sharpening seemingly small political struggles like school board meetings. This struggle exposed the role of liberal bosses and their unions in dividing and misleading the workers away from the militant, anti-racist student-education worker-parent unity shown at the first board meeting.
We learned we must engage in struggle anywhere and everywhere, no matter how small. Where there is no struggle happening, we must create one. We must fight back against the racist injustices that workers experience every day. Daily conversations with friends and co-workers about these injustices have the potential to be organized into larger on-the-job struggles. Guided by communist politics, these struggles have the potential to inspire bold action by regular workers and to produce long-lasting class struggle.
The struggle continues! The next step is to connect worsening conditions in the school to the larger issues of war, fascism, and growing inter-imperialist rivalries around the world. We will continue to struggle for teachers, students and parents to join PLP in organizing the fight for our class and a communist future.