Her union had 4,700 members before the storm and represented teachers while it fought for good schools. On issues of class size, quality teaching materials and innovation in education, the union and the state education department were often at loggerheads, with community and parent groups seeing the union as their advocate too.
“The state superintendent of education told me two days after the storm that there would be no schools whatsoever in New Orleans for at least a year,” Mitchell said. “It was all about breaking the back of the union so they could break the schools, keep African American workers from coming home and set up a free-market reign of terror.
“Our membership went down to zero; they set up three chaotic systems and they brought in volunteers and inexperienced, uncertified teachers, creating a disaster.”
Teachers union rising
Mitchell and other union activists started to rebuild the union from scratch. They got support from teachers and parents in each of the three school systems and now have 1,125 members. They have, through the courts, forced the state to pay $7 million in grievances to teachers who were summarily dismissed after Katrina. They have won back sole collective bargaining rights in the five schools that are part of the official New Orleans public school system, and the schools where their numbers are strongest are showing some of the best academic results.
“It’s not just teachers, moving ahead,” Mitchell said. “The labor movement in this city is alive and well. Our union, the American Federation of Teachers, the AFL-CIO, the longshoremen, the pipefitters, the seafarers, the electrical workers — all of us are back. We’ve taken our unions back and we will take this city back.”
Mitchell said, “I’m tired of singing ‘We Shall Overcome,’ and I am definitely tired of crying. We’re fighting and we are going to win.”
John Wojcik is the labor editor of the People's Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo newspaper www.pww.org.
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