The Greater Albany Education Association Is Building Solidarity

 

I attended a spirited union contract rally held by the Greater Albany Education Association (GAEA) in Albany yesterday. Several hundred teachers and their supporters gathered to support one another and build unity behind a set of commonsense and flexible demands that can be read here. It was hot and there wasn't much shade, but the union provided burritos and water and the speakers kept us engaged. At the end of the rally most of those who had gathered to make their collective voice heard went inside the school building for a listening session. 

Unlike many rallies that I have attended over the years, the speakers at this one managed to get right to the point and tell some hard truths in just a few minutes about contract bargaining, the real balance of power in union contract negotiations, and the hard choices facing the teachers without either sugarcoating or being defeatist. The teachers understand what they're up against and they're preparing themselves for having to make some tough choices. They're determined, they're supporting one another and they have a strong sense of community or solidarity developing with one another. The rally was multigenerational and the union's demands speak to many different concerns.

There are ways to tell how a union is doing and what it's internal culture is like, and this tells you much about the union's capacity to build and win. I showed up early and offered to help set things up and the members gave me some tasks to do alongside of them. This is a sure demonstration of a union putting members first, the members knowing that it is their union and their struggle, and the kind of openness that builds bridges.

This is a difficult moment for educational workers in Oregon. Municipalites and school boards have been doing tax abatements and expanding and rewarding school administration for so long that funding programs and increasing pay and benefits packages for teachers and support staff has become difficult. The work isn't getting easier and Covid has left us scarred and we have a loud and increasingly dangerous minority of folks who oppose public services and public education. Meanwhile, the kicker kicked and Intel got $90 million---with more money leaving public funds for private industry---and working people in Oregon just took some hard losses in the primaries. Municipalities and school boards are competing with one another for grants, special funding, tax dollars and spare change, and most state, county and municipal services seem to be locked in competition with one another for any available funding as well. Common sense should tell us that this is a downward and no-win spiral.

Yesterday's rally showed a joyous determination to take the high road and fight with dignity for educational workers and the Greater Albany communities.

The next GAEA bargaining session will be held on Tuesday, June 18 at 2885 Cedarwood Ct. SE in Albany from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM. The union is asking that teachers and their supporters wear red and pack the house. Let's help do this!

Photos from GAEA.

The Greater Albany Education Association is fighting for a fair contract. Please show solidarity with them on Monday, 6/10.

The Greater Albany Education Association is fighting for a fair contract and holding a very large rally this Monday 6/10 at 4:30pm and sticking around to pack the school board meeting afterwards. Please help spread the word to all of our fellow workers around Linn, Benton and Marion counties to come out and support the teachers of Albany!

Location: 

Timber Ridge School

373 Timber Ridge St NE, Albany, OR 97322

The union has website posts that provide some helpful context. You can view those here. 

Photo from GAEA.

A Solidarity Request From The Greater Albany Education Association

 A message from the Greater Albany Education Association say "...There is a Bargaining Session this Thursday 5/16and we are hoping to PACK THE HOUSE! Parking is limited so come early and bring the family! We hope everyone joins us 4:15 p.. in the parking lot." There will be fun activities outside and we are reminded that observers inside the building are not allowed to speak. 

The Salem-Keizer Education Association Gives Their Side Of The Story

A lesson for all of us: Massachusetts Teachers Are Making Waves and Winning Demands With Illegal Strikes

This report from Barbara Madeloni in the January 13, 2024 issue of Truthout (and previously published in Labor Notes) reminds us that nothing is given to workers without a hard struggle. We often benefit from activism that was established decades or centuries ago, but we also benefit from people who do "good trouble" on a regular basis today. The courageous West Virginia teachers who inspired the national Red For Ed movement started organizing their modern movement back in the 1960s and 1970s and struck in 1990, an illegal (and successful) almost-statewide strike that was enabled by a dramatic strike wave carried on by many diverse groups of workers. Practical union solidarity has many ingredients. Two of them are solidarity of workers across the board and a willingness to challenge the laws when they do not build justice.

Striking Andover teachers gathered on the Town Common in Andover, Massachusetts, on November 13, 2023.SUZANNE KREITER / THE BOSTON GLOBE VIA GETTY IMAGES


This story was originally published by Labor Notes.

A wildly successful, illegal three-day strike by the Andover Education Association in November has reverberated statewide for educators in Massachusetts.

The lowest-paid instructional assistants got a 60 percent wage jump immediately. Classroom aides on the higher end of the scale got a 37 percent increase.

Members won paid family medical leave, an extra personal day, fewer staff meetings, and the extension of lunch and recess times for elementary students.

Andover is 20 miles north of Boston, and the strike involved 10 schools.

For 10 months and 27 bargaining sessions, the Andover School Committee had insisted that none of these demands was possible. But by the end of the first day of the strike, they had ceded many items. By day three, they agreed to almost all of the union’s demands.

Public school workers can’t legally strike in Massachusetts — but Andover’s is just one of a series of school unions that have struck over the last four years, defying the ban, and in some cases paying heavy fines as a result.

The Massachusetts Teachers Association is pushing for legislation that would legalize public sector strikes after six months of bargaining.

Opening Up Meetings

The wins at Andover come after years of building rank-and-file power and democracy within the Andover Education Association (AEA).

When President Matt Bach and his slate won leadership in 2019, they startled the district by refusing to meet privately with the superintendent, insisting that all meetings would include at least one member.

The new leaders opened up union meetings and budgets. They shared union budget details, including that coffers had been significantly depleted by leadership travel to conferences. They encouraged discussion of critical issues, and the union started organizing building by building.

The first big fight was at South Elementary School, where a bullying principal was targeting teachers. The new union leaders sent out a survey about the school climate, but the recently deposed union leaders alleged that those asking for the survey were themselves the bullies.

Siding with the former union leaders, the district began an investigation and interviewed dozens of teachers. Instead of being intimidated, members got angry and organized a rally to call out the bullying. Under this pressure, the principal and the head of human resources were removed by the superintendent.

Lawn Chair Day

In the return to work mid-pandemic, AEA members refused to enter the school buildings for a professional development day until their safety could be assured. Instead they set up lawn chairs and their computers outside.

This action was deemed a strike by the state. The members were unprepared for an actual strike, so they returned to the buildings the next day. However, the action secured them a new air filtration system and helped lead to the resignation of the superintendent.

When the district received American Rescue Plan Act funds in the midst of the pandemic, AEA insisted that some of those funds be used to pay bonuses to the lowest-paid workers in the district, including cafeteria and other workers not in the union. The district balked, so the union worked with the community to bring the question to the Andover town meeting, which in some towns in Massachusetts is the town’s governing body. The goal: let the residents decide if they wanted to use the funds as bonuses.

School lawyers insisted that the motion was illegal and the issue was between the union and the district. At the town meeting, though, the community voted to support the motion as an advisory decision. (The district re-opened negotiations, and the issue remains unsettled.)

Opening Up

BargainingEach of these actions added a layer of educators ready to take on the district during contract negotiations. But not everyone was convinced.

Kate Carlton, a special education teacher at Doherty Middle School, told me she kept the union at arm’s length, because of negative past experiences with unions.

She said she didn’t believe the dire reports sent by Bach during the pandemic negotiations: “The language in his emails, I was like, no way. This is charged language, opinionated words. It cannot be that bad.”

Carlton started to attend negotiations to see for herself. “I heard and saw the way our town talked about teachers and what we do,” she said. “I was watching them and thinking, your child uses special ed! Your child uses special ed and you don’t respect what educators do? Feeling the ugliness. Then they speak out of the other side of their mouths and write these emails about how much they value us.”

Dan Donovan, a 15-year science teacher, was reluctant at first to join the strike vote — but changed his mind after he, too, witnessed negotiations. “It was informative to see how our side wanted to discuss and reason and go through things and we were just talking to a stone wall,” said Donovan. “When the School Committee sends out a press release or an email, they say one thing, but when you go to the bargaining session it is clear what is really going on.”

“The Price Is Right”

The School Committee resisted having union members in the room during bargaining — and the room could not hold the 100 to 200 members who wanted to attend each time.

While the union could have filed an unfair labor practice charge alleging that the district was not allowing the union to choose its own bargaining team and not meeting in a mutually agreed-upon space, it took an organizing approach instead.

Fifty members sat in the room as negotiations took place. Then the union would call a caucus and meet with those members and more who were in the auditorium next door. After discussion, a new group of 50 members would return, and negotiations would continue. Every time the union called a caucus, new members swapped in.

After one session when the School Committee objected to this swapping, members got more fired up than ever. Bach said enthusiasm was so great, “it was like ‘The Price is Right.’ People were rushing to be the ones to get in the room.”

Top Tip: Listen

What moved members to strike? Everyone I spoke to said members witnessing bargaining was central, but what made the most difference was listening.

Carlton identified members in her building who she knew had had issues with the union in the past. “I just say, ‘Hey, can I talk to you?’ I’m not going to tell them what to do. I am going to listen.”

Beth Arnold, a high school math teacher who was on the bargaining team, said the creation of communication teams of 10 members to one leader in the high school allowed people to engage in more conversations with each other, to hear from voices other than “the loudest,” and not rely just on emails or the word of the leadership.

When she talked with members about the illegality of the strike, and their fears, Arnold emphasized that the choice to strike was a shared decision — not one to make alone.

Passing It On

The strike wave among Massachusetts educators started in April 2019 with the Dedham Teachers Association. It was the first teachers strike in Massachusetts since 2007.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that even using the word “strike” constitutes “inducing, encouraging or condoning a work stoppage by public employees.” Union leaders who do so risk fines — personally and as elected leaders — and even jail time.

The Dedham educators voted to strike on a Thursday, were out one day, and had a tentative agreement in time to return to work Monday. They faced minimal fines.

The Brookline Educators Union struck in May 2022. They were out one day and were willing to pay a $50,000 fine imposed by the school district on the union.

The wave built with Haverhill, Malden, Woburn, and now Andover. Melrose Teacher Association members authorized a strike, but won all they demanded before they could walk out.

Some unions faced fines of up to $50,000 a day; others did not. In Woburn the community held a bake sale to help pay the fine. Some people paid $100 a cookie.
“Nothing Different About Us”

Educators in Massachusetts are not only seeing each other strike and win, but also teaching each other how to do it.

Barry Davis, president of the Haverhill Teachers Association, which struck in October 2022, says the lessons were first forged in the Merrimack Valley bargaining council, an informal network of six teacher locals that meet regularly to share contract issues and organizing strategies. After the Haverhill and Malden strikes, organizers from those locals reached out to or were contacted by members of other locals.

“We’d go out and talk to members in these locals, and they realized that we were just like them, that there was nothing different about us that made us able to strike,” Davis said. “When you are a third grade teacher with three kids, and a third grade teacher with three kids shows up to tell you how to do this, you realize much more is possible.”

AEA members have been transformed. “I don’t recognize these people,” said Bach shortly after the strike.

Originally Donovan said that he would do anything to support the union, except break the law. Now he says, “I’ve come around. Not all laws are just, and that is an unjust law. Teachers deserve the right to strike for just wages.”

This story was originally published by Labor Notes.

The views expressed here are not those of the Marion-Polk-Yamhill Central Labor Chapter or those of the Oregon AFL-CIO.

We support Salem-Keizer educational workers!

 

Joyce Provost Wheeler, the labor movement and labor history, and some lessons for today

Many years ago when I was working in Baltimore I got in a car with Joyce Wheeler on a Baltimore-humid day in August and went somewhere---I don't recall where---and listened to her talk about the how-tos of organizing and movement-building. I tried hard to take it all in. Joyce was energetic and was focused on teaching while I was trying to drive and learn from her at the same time. Some of what she had to say seeped in, but I was a poor student and a not-so-good driver. Joyce passed on in 2019. She lived a full life, but she is very much missed by those who knew her and learned from her.

What follows comes from Joyce's husband, Tim Wheeler. Tim says that "Here is a condensed version of one of the last chapters in my book, 'The Man From Lonaconing: The Life & Times of George A. Meyers.' I just finished it and added it to the book today. Joyce was such a quiet, unassuming, fearless, hero!" Tim carries on as a writer and as a source of knowledge and experience that should benefit young people finding their paths in the labor and progressive movements. I am posting this account by Tim because it describes aspects of the labor movement that I grew up in and some of what I have taken for granted. My intent here is to carry forward something invaluable from Joyce and Tim. The activists and leaders who are at the base of our labor movement and who are working for progressive change have to be creative, selfless, dedicated to our goals and focused on them, and willing to touch the hearts and lives of the young and those who face discrimination. They need to roll with the punches and understand that there are times of victories and defeats and still keep going forward. The labor movement needs to continually uplift and celebrate their diversity and spirit and make this our emblem. I think that Joyce was trying to say all of that in my car so many years ago.

 

IF FBI GETS IN THE WAY WE'RE GOING TO ROLL RIGHT OVER THEM!

Joyce Provost Wheeler earned a degree in anthropology at the University of Washington in 1963. A gifted dancer, she planned to do graduate work in ethnomusicology to preserve all the precious folk dances of isolated tribes around the world. Her career path veered suddenly when we met at a Student Peace Union meeting and got married. She ended up a kindergarten-First Grade teacher at Grove Park Elementary School on Baltimore’s far west side in 1970. I am to blame. I became a full-time reporter for the Worker, paid the minimum wage.

Joyce went to work as a classroom teacher to support the family. In all her forty years, she always taught “structured phonics.” Mack B. Simpson, the principal of Grove Park ignored Joyce’s use of a banned textbook, her insubordination in using phonics to teach her children to read. She invariably earned “Superior” ratings as a teacher. Teachers in the upper-grades would comment to Joyce, “I don’t know how you do it, but every one of the children who was taught by you, knows how to read!” Bored after fifteen years of teaching, she turned her classroom into a mini-zoo. Bunny rabbits hopped around her classroom, two orange and white guinea pigs that looked like miniature Guernsey cows, gerbils, a tiny female mouse with a brood of baby mice, a pair of Terrapin turtles, a huge tarantula spider that Joyce placed on her shoulder as she taught the children to read and write. The crown jewel of her animal collection was “Nagayina,” a lovely red-tailed Columbian boa who also liked to sleep wrapped around Joyce’s shoulders when the tarantula was in her cage.

She told her students they must feed the animals, clean up after them, and keep a log measuring their weight and behavior. She assigned them to write essays about the animals. Soon they all became pets. The children loved Joyce’s classes.

She decided to produce a play with all her children playing roles in this drama. It was performed in the big multi-purpose room. The play she chose was “Wagon Wheels” about African American pioneers, freed slaves, who emigrate to Kansas after Civil War Emancipation and establish the town of Nicodemus, an all-Black community in the middle of the prairie.

I attended an evening performance and I will never forget the expression on the faces of the parents, all the people from the Grove Park community, when they saw their youngsters perform in that marvelous play, the parents’ faces filled with joy and amazement. Dressed in their western costumes up on the stage, the children gathered round the camp fire, belted out their lines loud enough for everyone to hear. They sang cowboy songs like “Git Along Little Dogie” and “I Ride An Old Paint.” They were bringing to life a chapter in the history of the African American people deliberately erased by the white supremacist ruling elite. The children were depicting their ancestors--- pioneers, cowboys, frontiersmen, trekking into the wilderness, fearless and brave!

In the spring of 1974, Baltimore teachers walked out on strike. It lasted one month. Joyce was the picket captain at Grove Park Elementary. Virtually all the teachers joined the picket line. Baltimore teachers did not win that strike but Joyce played such an outstanding role in uniting the faculty and community, she was chosen ever after as the union “Building Rep” at Grove Park. Teachers would come to her, sometimes on the verge of tears, to complain of this or that grievance, Joyce would take them by the arm and lead them down to meet with the principal to resolve the issue. An active member of the United Action Caucus she and other UAC members in Baltimore worked hard and won bargaining rights for the Baltimore Teachers Union, AFT Local 340. Joyce Wheeler was elected and reelected without opposition as BTU Treasurer.

She was held in such high esteem at Grove Park that she was asked to write a centerspread article in the Baltimore Afro-American about the history of the school. The article, co-signed by Joyce and Principal Simpson appeared in the June 23, 1979 edition of the Afro under a headline,  "Once Upon A Time.” They wrote: “This is the 25th year of the Supreme Court Desegregation Decision, Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education. Grove Park School and the surrounding communities have witnessed block busting by real estate interests, the upheaval surrounding the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr…The school is like a living organism. It has experienced both good times and hard times. Grove Park is on course, providing an excellent education for the children….”

Events moved swiftly in the years that followed. Principal Mack B. Simpson left Grove Park School. His successor was Margaret Mitchell, a gifted, progressive educator. The clouds of political strife were turning dark and ominous. Republican, Ronald Reagan, the smooth-talking Grade-B Hollywood cowboy actor won the 1980 Presidential election and within months fired 12,500 striking air traffic controllers in August 1981.

As a member of the Baltimore Teachers Union Executive Board, Joyce was urging strong action in defense of public education and the rights of school workers. As a member of the Baltimore Communist Party, she was meeting, often in the living room of our home, or in the home of Jim and Margaret Baldridge, to plan all this fightback.

One spring day in 1981, Mrs. Mitchell looked out the window of her Grove Park office facing on Kennison Ave. Parked directly across the street was an unmarked sedan with two white men sitting in the front seat. They were parked there all day---and the next.

What is this? Mitchell called School Police at Baltimore schools headquarters on North Ave. She spoke to one of the commanders she knew well. Please send a squad car to find out who these men are, she told the officer.

Within an hour he called her back. “Margaret,” he said. “They are FBI agents assigned to keep one of your staff-members, Mrs. Wheeler, under surveillance.”

Mrs. Mitchell’s jaw dropped. “What? My Joyce Wheeler? You mean the woman who has been teaching children at Grove Park to read for the past ten years? Well Mark, you send your officers back out and inform those FBI agents to leave immediately and don’t return!”

Captain Mark did. The FBI agents disappeared and never returned.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Mitchell called Joyce on the intercom and asked her please to drop by at the end of the day. When Joyce sat down in front of the principal’s desk, Mrs. Mitchell asked her, “Joyce, by any chance, have you noticed the car parked across the street with two men in it for the past three days?” Joyce shook her head. “Well, we now know who they are. FBI agents. According to Baltimore School police, they were assigned to spy on you. I arranged to have them removed. If ever you are accosted by these or any other federal agents, please let me know. I will do everything I can to protect you from this kind of outrageous harassment and intimidation.”

A few months later, the entire labor movement of Maryland, African American, Latino, and white, was mobilizing in solidarity with the striking PATCO air controllers fired en masse by Reagan and his union busting minions. The AFL-CIO Executive Council had endorsed “Solidarity Day,” a plan for tens of thousands of union members to gather in Washington D.C. September 19, 1981 and march in support of PATCO and all other workers fighting to defend their union.

Joyce and fellow BTU Local 340 members, marched proudly with the American Federation of Teachers. More than 500,000 union workers and their allies marched that day. Joyce played a leading role in pushing a UAC resolution through the AFT National Convention in Denver endorsing Solidarity Day and she worked tirelessly to fill BTU buses for that march and rally Sept. 19. She was Woody Guthrie's "Union Maid" who never was afraid of goons and ginks and FBI finks who made the raids.

Joyce Wheeler. Photo from Tim Wheeler. 

Support for Salem-Keizer Classified Staff Teachers, A Great Radio Interview With Union Leaders, And A Union Rally On 12/28

Jamie Partridge, the ubiquitous Portland-area labor activist and one of the KBOO Labor Radio magnets, sent us a link to a radio interview that he recently did with Salem-Keizer area Salem-Keizer Education Association (SKEA) and Association of Salem Keizer Education Support Professionals (ASK ESP) member-leaders. Jamie is a member of the National Association of Letter Carries #82, Portland Democratic Socialists of America, and Portland Jobs with Justice so he brings some special background and context to his labor radio work. This is a strong interview that gets to the heart of what's going wrong in union contract negotiations between the unions and our school district. Understanding what's going on here seems fundamental to serving as a School Board Director or as a Salem or Keizer city councilperson or running as a candidate for a position on either body, but we have heard that the school board directors have been told not to talk to the unions and we're not aware of positive engagement from Salem or Keizer city councils.

Jamie Partridge's blurb advertising this great show reads as follows:

Rank-and-file leaders of Salem-Keizer education union discuss their struggles for fair union contracts and how they're getting strike ready.

Kimberly Reed Zauber and Geovanny Tolentino of the Salem-Keizer Education Association (SKEA, the certified teachers) plus Jeff Jabin and Brian Zauber Reed of the Association of Salem-Keizer Education Support Professionals are interviewed by Labor Radio host Jamie Partridge.

Go here to hear the interview.

We stand with the SKEA and AK-ESP unions!

The Marion-Polk-Yamhill Central Labor Chapter holiday party had members of the Association of Salem-Keizer Education Support Professionals and the Salem Keizer Education Education Association attending. It was a great party and the event was enriched the presence of many members of the two unions. Both unions are in tough contract negotiations right now. Our blog is carry lots of information about solidarity actions supporting them.     

Please support the Salem-Keizer Education Association and the Association of Salem Keizer Education Support Professionals

This is the SKEA bargaining team.

 The photo was taken from SKEA.

Wednesdays are Red for Ed days in the Salem-Keizer Public Schools! Yesterday was the first day of mediation between the Salem-Keizer Education Association (SKEA) and the District. The union held an impressive rally and the union members and supporters who turned out were enthusiastic and loud. SKEA and the Association of Salem Keizer Education Support Professionals (ASK ESP) both deserve our full support as they try to win contracts under especially difficult circumstances.

 

How We Do And Don't Do Politics: Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates At The United Electrical Workers Convention

 
Note from Bob Rossi:

This post does not reflect the opinions of the Marion-Polk-Yamhill Central Labor Chapter (MPYCLC) or the Oregon AFL-CIO.

I think that Sister Davis Gates gave a strong and generally correct speech to the recent convention of the United Electrical Workers (UE). Given that union's history of engagement with progressive issues and its recent growth in numbers and influence, the UE members present were geared up for what the Chicago Teachers Union President had to say. It should matter to all of us that much of what she had to say is being proven true in practice. She isn't making anything up in her speech. And I think that if our labor movement wants to hold on to members and succeed in contract campaigns and politics we have to listen carefully to what is being said here and change course.

Here are some of my takeaways:

1. We let the political parties choose our candidates rather than asserting ourselves way too much of the time. Candidates show up, ask for endorsement, we usually go through a difficult endorsement process, and if we endorse them we spend some time trying to bring them up to speed on our issues while they're busy running for office. Full labor unity behind particular candidates is not always in place, and endorsements and unity do not always guarantee votes. We sometimes run in circles for money, endorsements and votes while trying to bring candidates closer to us, and we may not fully succeed in either attempt. When the not-fully-informed-and-committed candidate wins but doesn't follow through on our issues as we hoped they would we're disappointed or angry, but if you step back and look at how the process works over time you can see why this happens so often.  

2. The Oregon Labor Candidate School and the Labor Education and Research Center and whatever programs unions may have in place to encourage union members to run for public office are invaluable. No union member or union supporter should run for office without taking the trainings and classes offered. More than that, these training opportunities graft people in to networks and expose participants to big-picture politics and complex questions that potential candidates should be working with before they run.

That said, trainings are not substitutes for organizing, building movements, producing the people and energy that movements need, creating street heat and winning in negotiations, and defining victories. Sister Davis Gates is saying that movement building is the priority and that you won't understand and exercise power until you have built a militant labor movement that is not afraid of striking. That movement will create activists, organizers and leaders and our candidates and the energy needed to get them over the top should come from the movement and its alliances with community activists and organizers. The money and endorsements will probably come later and after institutions learn that you're serious and committed and capable. See this article and this article.

3. We're putting the cart before the horse by not being about movement building, thinking that we have to choose between candidates who do not come from our ranks, trying to bring candidates along who do not know us and our issues, thinking about winning elections as being about money (and not people power), thinking about people power as something to mobilize every two years or four years (instead of it being about constant organizing and militancy at the grassroots), and supporting candidates who have not been tested in workplace actions, strikes and contract negotiations.

4. Our labor political scorecards are valuable tools. They tell us how a politician has voted on labor issues. I think that the problem here is that as political polarization deepens it gets harder to define what "liberal," "centrist," "conservative" and "progressive" mean in real terms. What is a "labor issue" today and how do we define victories when we're up against the wall and too quick to compromise? The Republican party has moved so far to the far-right so quickly that a politician or program that used to be considered conservative now might look like liberal and a progressive politician or program gets defined as being anti-Republican and left at that. Like many other working-class people, I'm both repelled by the anti-worker and hard-hearted Republicans, who tell me that I don't deserve what I have earned and are taking aim at my rights, and by the weak liberals and progressives who excuse austerity and don't defend public services and many of the gains labor has made over the last ninety years. And we in labor are often playing a weak defense.