Chicago education workers strike against racism

CHICAGO, October 23—The Chicago Public School education workers, numbering 30,000, are on strike against racist learning conditions affecting over 300,000 students, the majority of which are Black and Latin. A multiracial and inter-generational mix of education workers and supporters held daily pickets, rallies, marches, and teach-ins. This shows the potential of working-class unity and strength in one of the most segregated cities in the U.S.
We are learning to fight against capitalist racist schools and fighting to learn how only a communist education can provide a quality education for students. This bold antiracist fight is in constant risk of being sold out. Like all reforms, the struggle is compromised when the working class trusts bosses and union misleaders who ultimately serve the system.
Class struggle in session
Education workers launched the strike on October 17. Teachers remixed popular songs like Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts” to fit the contract fight. At one school, teachers did a flash mob to block traffic. Facebook has been overflowing videos from pickets showcasing working-class creativity. Still, others led marches through neighborhoods to spread class consciousness. Workers from other unions and community organizations joined the actions and added their own character to the pickets.
Student-parent-worker unity
The strike galvanized young teachers and inspired veteran and retired educators to continue fighting. At a solidarity rally, a young Progressive Labor Party (PLP) teacher blasted the racist attacks in education on Black students and educators through defunding and continued school closings.  
There has been immense support from students, parents and other workers in the city. The bosses tried to drive a wedge between teachers and parents, but failed. Students and parents have been on the picket-line unapologetically standing with teachers. At the schools where PL’ers have been organizing, we helped with door-knocking and community outreach. It was essential for the strike to continue building mass support among education workers, parents, and students.
Communists from the international Progressive Labor Party (PLP) brought solidarity to strikers. Strikes can be schools for communism and demonstrate the potential power of the working class. We are actively working within the strike, seeking to push the limits beyond the reform goals. We fight for the line that a worthy education for the masses is a pipe dream under this racist profit system.
Smash racism and limits of union reformism
At its heart, the strike is an antiracist movement against despicable racist conditions that  are the norm within schools under capitalism. A racist law passed in 1995 severely limited what teachers in Chicago could strike over.
But, as a result of fightback (against police terror, deportations, and gentrification), the struggle to improve conditions in the schools has expanded beyond just economic demands. The demands reflect the idea that the teacher’s working conditions are students’ learning conditions—staffing of social workers and nurses, smaller class sizes, a path to affordable stable homes for thousands of students, and more.
The liberal trap
No matter how well-intended these demands, the bosses will not protect working-class students. Democrats and Republicans have both waged war on undocumented students and workers through mass detention and deportations. And with Chicago’s move to become a “global city” (read: resegregation and gentrification), more displacement of Black and Latin workers is sure to follow (The Atlantic, 3/28/18).
The contract must be understood within this context: the liberal mayor Lori Lightfoot is already celebrating $250 million dollars of “transformative change” that will be coming to exploited communities on the South and West sides (Chicago Sun Times, 10/22).
Neither the racist mayor Lightfoot nor the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) leadership will ensure antiracist learning conditions for students. Such is the nature of capitalist institutions. Rather, the union leadership will accept some minor reforms, then funnel the rank-and-file back into the classroom. The union bosses will continue to lead workers into the camp of the pro-capitalist liberal misleaders like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Jesse Jackson.
Nothing fair under capitalism
The rallies call for a “fair contract,” but nothing is fair under capitalism. The term “fair contract” hides the inherent exploitation and predatory nature of capitalism. By definition, workers cannot keep the true value of their labour. Without wage theft, there is no profit for the bosses. This profit system is the foundation of education for our working-class children.
Yet the struggle for a new union contract is pushed by the union misleadership as the pinnacle of fightback. Never mind that bosses will violate any contract when it suits them, because they hold state power (and use the police, media, courts, and military to exert that power).
If the contract is violated, what is the union misleadership to do? Push past the limits the bosses have set or push workers into legal arbitration? They will assure us our issues will be addressed in the next fight. Workers are then disarmed of their potential militancy and the capitalist reform treadmill goes on.
Fight to learn, learn to fight
History shows advances in education for the masses was made in revolutionary periods with communists and workers in charge. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Union transformed a largely illiterate agrarian society to an advanced industrialized nation within the span of a generation. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, the world witnessed the largest literacy campaign in human history. Millions of young students travelled from the cities to the countryside to break down barriers between manual and mental labor.
It’s this revolutionary legacy that the communist PLP seeks to learn from and build upon. Workers, students, parents—join our international fight. Fight to learn, learn to fight!