“Pension Misogyny” and Teacher Pushback in the 2016 Elections

Paterson Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter is being advanced as a serious candidate for Murphy’s Lt. Governor, and would be the second women of color on a Democratic ticket.

This ongoing war against female wage earners in the public sector that is dominated by women needs to stop, and it will be up to teachers, other public workers, and their unions to stanch this misogynistic battering.

“Pension misogyny” has systematically emerged in the teaching profession since the 1970s as teachers and other public-sector workers (who are overwhelmingly female) have gained salary increases and workplace rights through collective bargaining. It parallels the attacks on Roe v. Wade in 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court gave women greater control of their bodies and reproductive rights. Thus, females have been subjects of economic violence as they have exercised these rights and improved their standing in the financial system.

This war against women has been reflected in the reductions in teachers’ and public employees’ salaries via increase in their pension and benefit contributions across the nation, sharp declines in aid for basic school services, and the refusal to replace and/or rehabilitate decaying school facilities, especially those in low-wealth districts. These cutbacks are being used to fund tax cuts for the wealthy elite, subsidize corporate charter schools, and to support inner-city gentrification and other private-sector initiatives.

The most recent example of the implementation of these “misogynistic strategies” is occurring in Chicago. Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), is aggressively fighting back against “pension misogyny” and other school budget decreases. She negotiated a deal late Tuesday night which averted a strike that 88 percent of teachers had already approved. Lewis demanded and was given “…more money for schools, particularly from special taxing districts (that are being used to fund corporate real estate interests) and teacher pension pickup, long a hang-up in contract talks,” along with funding for “school counselors, social workers and psychologists; (reduction of) classroom sizes in early grades; and restor(ing) cuts to library services.”

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who appoints the school board, had vowed to end the school system’s contributions to pensions and to pull additional monies out of the Chicago Public Schools to give to his corporate benefactors. This is the second authorized strike that CTU, led by Karen Lewis, has authorized. In 2012, 60 days before the presidential election, she directed the teachers on a week-long strike that forced Mayor Emanuel’s hand because teachers from the battleground states (e.g., IA, OH, FL, WI, CO, etc.) were renting busses to come to Chicago to stand in solidarity with the CTU.

This was at a time when President Obama (his friend) needed them on the ground in their respective states to ensure his reelection. The Obama administration called Emanuel and asked him to settle the strike to help his reelection. Teachers and other unionized workers were the margins in Obama’s narrow victories in Ohio and Florida.

In 2011, before the acrimonious 2012 negotiations, Lewis had met with Emanuel in order to establish a relationship, “… And … he got angry … and cussed (her) out.” She quickly learned that: “The unions have agreed to things that are absolutely terrible for their members because they’ve tried to work with these folks,” … But it is never enough. These people want complete and total control. They want to actually destroy public education.” Lewis recognizes that laying back and continuing to discuss and endorse policies developed by the corporate education reform Cartel will lead to the self-induced professional suicide of teachers and the continuing adherence to the axiom that the “… definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result.”

Teachers are also pushing back in Pennsylvania (where they recently helped to elect a pro-public education, Democratic governor after being professional damaged by his Republican predecessor); North Carolina, where the incumbent, right-wing anti-public education governor has trailed his challenger, Atty. General Roy Cooper, during the entire election season based on the political organizing of the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE); and Indiana, where departing Governor Mike Pence will be replaced by a Democrat, John Gregg, a solid proponent of public education.

The time is now—in the 2016 elections–for teachers to take a stand for their professional futures and put an end to the “virulent misogyny” involving pensions, benefits, support, and respect in the workplace that is predominantly female.