Solidarity with West Virginia School Workers

On February 22 a extraordinary event occurred in West Virginia, an illegal strike of over 22,000 teachers and school employees. All public schools are closed in the state and the strike will be continuing into next week.

Despite threats from the West Virginia state authorities to take unspecified action, the strike is holding strong going into a second week. One striker was quoted saying “What are they going to do, fire us all? Who would they get to replace us? » With wages some of the lowest in the US, the state had already been unable to fill 700 teaching jobs.

Because the State’s legislature is responsible for the salaries of school employees, strikers have been swarming the State Capital disrupting the meetings there. Pounding on closed doors and chanting “Move Mitch, Get out of the way”. A joke on Mitch Carmichael, the President of the Senate, and a song by hiphop artist Ludacris – “Move Bitch”.

Self Organized

The organization of the strike started last year when school employees started a facebook group to discuss confronting the legislature for better pay and insurance. One striker said, “This was almost completely a grassroots movement, the unions kind of followed us” by planning an official protest. But the cat was out of the bag and strike votes were taken county by county.

So Much for “Trumpism”

So we have a mass illegal strike in a state in which Trump won West Virginia giving him his largest margin of victory in the country – 68.7% of the vote. West Virginia was also one of two states where Donald Trump won every county. As marxists, thus materialists, the ICP isn’t surprised. Elections are con-jobs and the workers, when they find they have power, take their own course despite what their votes in elections were.

A Victory?

The school workers of West Virginia have accepted the state’s offer and have returned to work with a 5% raise in wages. Was the strike a success? Like all strikes, yes and no. The wage increases are being funded with attacks on the living standards on all of West Virginia’s workers – cuts in school programs and medicare health care programs.

Despite the West Virginia state official’s attempts of a quid pro quo, the inspiration of rank and file led strikes have swept the country. Oklahoma teachers are likely striking at the beginning of April, organizing their activities on Facebook. Arizona and Kentucky state workers are also using the organizing techniques of the WV school strikers.

We would consider the spread of worker lead and organized strike movements a great victory.

A Program

The ICP advocates a program of building A United Front of Class Unions. In the US, this would look like on-going coordinations of unions who fight for the working class, rogue union locals, rank and file workers groups like the one which initiated the West Virginia strike as well as workers centers. Such coordinations would provide a framework for successful economic struggles.