There’s an old labor tune that you’ve probably heard before. It’s been sung by dockworkers, folk singers and punk bands since it was written by the wife of a miner in 1931. It’s kind of slow, almost a funeral dirge, and it asks a fundamental question of any and all who may be riding the fence in the struggle between workers and bosses. This song asks: which side are you on?
Two labor disputes in the news recently—the Chicago teacher strike and NFL referee lockout—showed that many in this country don’t seem ready to answer that question.
The teacher strike generated massive amounts of negative press on the national level, including in these pages. Vista copy editor Sarah Neese, in a Sept. 18 editorial, asserted that “While the teachers are free to their complaints and concerns, they seem to have forgotten their primary purpose as teachers—to teach.”
This attitude, mirrored by similarly sensible-sounding editorials that day, seemed to suggest that teachers have a bigger responsibility than worrying about their rights as workers—that their work takes precedence over whether they’re being treated fairly.
Interestingly, the Chicago strike was not about wages, at least not completely. While they were legally bound to say that pay was what they were striking for, the real targets of the week-long strike were the evaluation systems and standardized testing—highly contentious issues which have been the subject of debate in the education world for some time now.
The strike, which was supported by many Chicago parents, ended on Sept. 19, with a few of the teachers’ demands met.
The NFL referee lockout, on the other hand, was almost unanimously condemned by football fans, and the scab referees were decried as dangerous, incompetent and unfit to officiate at the professional level. People put pressure on the league to meet the union referees’ demands, end the lockout and return their football to normal after only a couple of poorly-officiated games.
The NFL complied. No one questioned the union’s motives. No one asked if unionized refs were “bad for America.” Not even Republicans. Wis. Governor Scott Walker, who came under fire in 2011 for his controversial gutting “reforms” to collective bargaining laws in his state, lamented the Green Bay Packers loss on Sept. 12 and followed with the hashtag “return the real refs.”
It’s interesting—or rather, unsettling—that we can react so positively to a situation involving labor when it concerns entertainment and so negatively to a similar situation when it concerns something serious, like the education system. What would be the difference between a scab referee—who we can all agree puts players in jeopardy and makes games less fun to watch—and a scab teacher, who would be responsible for educating your child?
We need to figure out which side we’re on.