The political issues facing Detroit teachers

[Karmadillo]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/detr-a23.shtml

The conflict between teachers and the Detroit public school authorities raises fundamental political questions which every school employee should carefully consider. The vast majority of teachers know full well that there is no way to avoid a fight against the ruthless and provocative concessions demands of Detroit Public Schools CEO William Coleman and the politicians at the city and state level.

But it would be a serious mistake to believe that strike action by itself can defeat these attacks. Unless it is accompanied by a new political strategy aimed at mobilizing the entire working class population against the political agents of big business in Detroit, Lansing and Washington DC—Democrats as well as Republicans—this strike will end in defeat as have so many in the past.

Make no mistake. The full-page ad published in Tuesday’s newspapers by the school authorities is a declaration of war. It begins by declaring that any strike is against the law—a clear threat to impose fines and other sanctions against rank-and-file teachers as well as the union. We are therefore immediately confronting a direct government attack, which can be answered only by a fight for industrial action by every section of workers in the Detroit area, combined with a struggle to build a genuine political party of the working class.

The dead-end of isolated strike action without an independent policy advancing the needs of workers and a political party to carry it out can be seen in the tragedy unfolding at Northwest Airlines.

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