School board members acting like petulant children

This is how democracy works in this country.



The Vermillion Parish school board met to determine whether to give the school superintendant a raise. Ms. Deyshia Hargrave had the nerve to question the school board as to why they were giving the superintendant a raise when teachers hadn't had a raise in years.

In the meantime class sizes have increased along with the duties of the teachers.

Instead of answering Ms. Hargrave's questions, the presiding officer of the school board decided to have her removed from the meeting. The officer, who showed himself to be nothing more than a lackey for the administration, roughed up Ms. Hargrave before arresting her on charges of remaining when forbidden and resisting arrest.

School board meetings are supposed to be open to the public. Members of the public in attendance have the right to ask questions and make comments during portions of meeting. Now I understand that many school board members would prefer to make their decisions in private where they are away from the glare of the light and can avoid taking responsibility. But that isn't how it's supposed to work.

The school board in Vermillion Parish - just like many school boards across this country - showed where their priorities were. It's a whole lot easier to raise the superintendant's salary that it is to explain to the public that taxes need to be raised to pay for school improvements and teacher salary increases.

But what happened in Vermillion Parish was uncalled for. Yes, board members who favored the pay increase - and the superintendant himself - certainly didn't want to be questioned about it. They expected everyone in attendance to just go along with the proposal. But when your response to being questioned by not just a member of the public, but your own employee, is to have her dragged out of a meeting and arrested, you have shown yourselves to be incapable of leadership.

This video should be broadcast as part of a civics lesson on how not to govern.

H/T David Begnaud

See also "Louisiana teacher handcuffed forcibly after asking questions at board meeting," The Guardian (1/9/2018)

Down, set, unionize!

Today football players at Northwestern University outside Chicago will vote on whether or not to unionize. Ever since the Chicago office of the National Labor Relations Board ruled that college football players should be considered employees of the school they attend there has been pressure put on the NU players to vote down unionization.

Coach Pat Fitzgerald has been adamant in his opposition to the union effort. And why not? After all, he's part of the management structure. Of course he doesn't want the players working together to improve their working conditions and benefits. Such an action would mean he wasn't the Grand Poobah by the Lake. Unionization could mean an end to the program of "voluntary" off-season workouts in which anyone who volunteers not to be there is volunteering not to play in the fall.

Unionization might also mean that there would be a limit on the number of hours a week players could practice being that excessive practice time interferes with a student's ability to study and prepare for class.

University officials are scared to death of what might happen should the players vote to unionize. A yes vote today could usher in an era of better health care coverage for injuries suffered while playing for the university and for four-year scholarships instead of the current year-at-a-time scholarship that puts a player at the mercy of the coach.

Such measures could cut into the pool of money that Northwestern and other universities rake in from football and basketball. Now, to be fair, very few colleges have athletic departments that make a profit. In fact, many schools have to subsidize athletics by tacking on fees for the rest of the student body. Of course there is always a few million dollars to hand out to the coach. In many cases, the head football coaches at a state's public institutions are the highest paid state employees - underlining our screwed up sense of priorities.

The football players who are on the fence on this issue (and the ones who are against it) need to get their heads around the concept that there is power in numbers. While the coaching staff might not like the idea, if the players are united in their efforts, they will win in the end. These players are exploited by the school. While the NU athletic department brings in some $20 million a year as a result of the Big Ten Network, the players are the equivalents of unpaid farmhands who the program will chew up and spit out once they are no longer of any use.

For the vast majority of these players, their playing days will end with the final game of their senior season. They will then go off into the world with nothing but the education they received at Northwestern. They will be the ones stuck with the nagging medical issues left over from their time on the gridiron.

Our current sports media coverage has deified coaches and athletic directors at the expense of the players. Coaches are portrayed as field generals leading their troops into battle while the players are just the meat being led to slaughter. Watch a college football game and you will never hear a commentator talk about how coaches hold players hostage by threatening to yank a scholarship. You won't hear anyone talk about who's responsible for the long-term side effects of playing college football. You will rarely hear someone talk about coaches who refuse to allow players to transfer to another school.

Today is the day for college football players to fight back and tear off the shackles that hold them captive. This is the time for them to seize the moment. Today's the day we find out whether football builds character or just serves to crush dissenting voices.

UPDATE:

In a demonstration of just how powerful a group of workers can be, no one will be climbing Everest from the Nepali side in 2014 after Sherpas decided to walk off the mountain following last week's deadly avalanche. While the Sherpas on the mountain earn far more than the average Nepali, the government's decision to pay the families of those who died on the mountain a measly $400 brought to a boil tensions that had been simmering for years.

Maybe the football players at Northwestern should take a loot to see just what an organized group of workers can do when they act with the collective strength of the entire group.

Look for that union label! Rah! Rah! Rah!

This morning in Chicago there will be a hearing before the National Labor Relations Board in which the NLRB will determine whether the football players at Northwestern University can form a union to represent their interests. The university is opposing the players' application on the grounds that college football players are students, not employees.

Over the past few years the business of college football has exploded. While it was always popular the money being thrown about by networks to broadcast college football games is at stratospheric levels. Despite the unprecedented television rights fees, only about 10% of the athletic departments at public universities in Division I turn a profit. The vast majority of schools tax all students to pay for the school's athletic teams.

But all the new money flowing into college athletics hasn't trickled down to the players. Yes, the players receive scholarships to attend school - and many are given access to a school that they would not have otherwise been able to attend - but the scholarships are held over their heads by the coach and school. Scholarships for football players are not handed out for a four or five-year period, they are handed out on a year-to-year basis. This means that the players' educations are subject to the whims of the coaching staff.

Football scholarships should be for at least five years to insure that every football player has the opportunity to obtain their degree after their playing days are over. Only a small minority of college football players will ever go on to earn a paycheck for playing football; for the rest, that college degree is the reward for their playing days.

The players spend at least as much time on the field as they do in class every week. They are used by the universities as marketing tools to attract new applicants and athletic donors. The schools sell uniforms with numbers - but not names - that correspond to the most popular players. Their work benefits the school. Yet the schools insist they are not employees.

College athletes should receive a stipend of some sort for the work they perform for the university. That stipend should be based upon the number of hours they spend at practice and on the field. At the very least they should be compensated at the same level students on work-study programs are paid. The schools should also be responsible for the future medical expenses for injuries the players suffered while playing college ball.

College football is a huge money-making machine and the players are the unpaid labor that makes it all possible. It's time they received a fair shake from these institutes of higher learning who are given the task of preparing our youth to be the leaders of tomorrow.

Black day in Bentonville?

Today while you're out shopping on Black Friday, Wal-Mart employees will be in the streets protesting labor relations at the world's largest retailer. Wal-Mart attempted to shut down the protests before they began by complaining to the National Labor Relations Board that the United Food and Commercial Workers Union was engaging in unfair labor practices.

The complaint rings hollow as the workers at Wal-Mart are non-unionized - largely due to the company's virulent anti-union and anti-worker policies. Wal-Mart wants you to believe that the vast majority of their workforce is happy to be employed at poverty-level wages. They may be right if we're talking about the teenagers who work after school in order to put gas in their car and pay their cell phone bills.

But, for a full-time "associate," the story is a bit more bleak as a full-time employee making a bit over minimum wage still falls under the government's official poverty line. There is something seriously wrong when full-time employees are paid a wage that won't even pay the bills.

Of course Wal-Mart and the rest of their corporate brethren don't want you to think about that while you're out hunting for the best deal on a flat-screen TV or the latest electronic device on your child's list. They want you to think that those folks living under the poverty line are mooches who are doing their best to avoid responsibility. They don't want you to think about the fact that their profit margins are generated by employing people at the lowest wage possible.

So here's something to chew on while you're waiting in line today. Why is it that our government refuses to raise the minimum wage to a level that working folks can afford to pay their bills? Why is it that President Obama never once mentioned the plight of the working poor during the campaign? Why is it that Wal-Mart is doing whatever it can to prevent its employees from exercising their right to fight for higher wages and better working conditions?

For those of y'all  out in the parking lots and sidewalks today fighting for a better life, you have my support.

Um, on second thought...

After local South African prosecutors made the decision to charge striking mineworkers with murder under an old apartheid-era law, the shit began to hit the fan. Questions were asked about why the state had not charged any of the police officers who actually shot the striking miners with murder.

I would imagine that part of that answer can be found in the fact that the striking miners were from a "militant" union not affiliated with the "approved" union. What better way to protect a friendly union than to imprison the members of the competing union.

While South African President Jacob Zuma decided not to dirty his hands with the matter, the national director of prosecutors, Nomgcobo Jiba, was left holding the bag for the government. Of course one must wonder in such a high-profile matter how local prosecutors were allowed to have some 270 miners arrested on murder charges without someone from Pretoria having at least a little say in the matter.

In a bid to save face, the government finally decided to drop the charges (provisionally) and release the imprisoned miners.

Now, over a week later, all of the imprisoned miners have been released. But now the government has to rely on the miners to cooperate with an official investigation into what happened at the mine. The union has promised to conduct its own investigation.

The law in question was used to imprison demonstrators whenever violence ensued - usually at the hand of government troops. That way, whenever soldiers fired into a crowd, they could grab any demonstrator at hand and charge them with the murder of their fellow demonstrator. The law was a tool of oppression.

And that's exactly what happened at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana. The law was used by the government to quash a budding union movement that didn't place compromise as its ultimate goal.

Deflecting blame

Two weeks ago in South Africa, police fired into a crowd of striking mineworkers. Thirty-four miners ended up dead.

The police claimed the miners, on strike against a London-based mining company, charged at them with guns and machetes. The police claimed they had no choice but to open fire. Others have claimed that the violence was a result of a struggle between an established miners' union and an upstart that represented miners at the Marikana mine.



Now the government has come down on the miners, charging 270 miners with the murder of their co-workers. Prosecutors allege that the 270 men acted with a common purpose and that their actions led to the deaths of the 34 miners shot by police.

The men, none of whom are alleged to have fired a shot, were denied bail.

None of the police officers who killed the miners have been charged.

"The policemen who killed those people are not in custody, not even one of them. This is madness." 

There's something seriously wrong when the men who fired the shots are free while the men who were fired at are sitting in a jail cell awaiting their next court appearance. By blaming the striking miners, the government is able to distract the public's attention from the way in which the might of the state was used to crush a worker's rebellion.

Instead of the issue being the exploitation of workers and the transfer of wealth out of the country by a foreign corporation, the focus is now on the conduct of the striking miners. Instead of questioning the control of local resources by a foreign company, the public's attention is focused on whether the miners doth protested too much.

All around the world, and throughout history, those who control the means of production have used the force of the state to try to break the resolve of the working class. The police, whose mantra is to protect and serve, do in fact protect and serve their masters.

The government's actions are nothing more than a capitulation before the forces of international capital. The rule of law is tossed on its head and replaced with, as Mr. Gamso would note, the law of rule. The state charges the miners with murder because it can and allows the killers to walk free because it can.