Teachers in Arizona and some in Colorado remained on strike today.

In both states there is a building anti-union backlash from the right.

Colorado is using the iron fist.



Teachers across the state have been using sick days and unpaid leave to call out of school and rally for better pay, retirement benefits and increased funding for education. A formal strike is looming in Pueblo District 60.

If the lawmakers behind the bill get their way, striking teachers could face termination, a $500 per day fine, or even up to six months of jail time.

The bill is unlikely to pass, but it gives you some idea what contempt the right wing has for organized labor.

Arizona, on the other hand, is the test case for school privatization. So it shouldn't be a surprise when the backlash comes from private interests.



Timothy Sandefur, an attorney for the organization that litigates over conservative causes, contends the walkout by teachers that has affected close to 850,000 youngsters statewide is an illegal strike.

“Public school teachers in Arizona have no legal right to strike, and their contracts require that they report to work as they agreed,” he said.

But the real target of his legal threats are individual school districts who he contends are facilitating that illegal activity. That includes everything from closing schools while the teachers and support staff are staying away to refusing to dock the pay of the absent teachers.

Sandefur works for the Goldwater Institute, and is supposed to be a libertarian group, but like most libertarians they are really just a business advocacy group that doesn't even recognize the rights of workers.

The real problem for the anti-union right is that the public is overwhelmingly in favor of the teachers.



Just 1 in 4 Americans believe teachers in this country are paid fairly. Nearly two-thirds approve of national teachers' unions, and three-quarters agree teachers have the right to strike. That last figure includes two-thirds of Republicans, three-quarters of independents and nearly 9 in 10 Democrats.

What makes it especially hard to hate the teachers is that the teachers are more motivated to improve classroom conditions than improving their salaries.

The right-wing recognizes that it is losing the propaganda war, so it is using under-handed methods to fight back. Consider Kentucky, where the teachers resorted to walk-outs and sick-outs after a late-night attempt to gut their pensions.



After this backlash, the state legislature did increase funding for schools, but inflation-adjusted per-student funding is still 16 percent lower than in 2008. And to finance the new spending, instead of closing corporate tax loopholes, the legislature used regressive taxes. Ninety percent of Kentuckians will pay more—while the top 10 percent of income earners will pay less, and the top 1 percent will pay far less. An unprecedented 46 educators are now running for the state legislature.

Turning one part of the working class against another part is a Gilded Age strategy.

As for the media, the State Policy Network, a conglomeration of right-wing think tanks, put out a how-to guide for those that want to smear the teachers.



It advises anti-union campaigners to argue that “it’s unfortunate that teachers are protesting low wages by punishing other low-wage parents and their children.”

It's shameless how the same people who want to gut public education claim to care about low-income students. Shameless, but not surprising.

And right on que, the WallStreetJournal marches to the tune.



“It’s holding the parents hostage because they are having to scramble to find people to watch their kids,” said Mrs. Goehring, who has alternated with her husband watching their children and several others whose families couldn’t take off work during the walkout. “It’s placing an undue hardship on families just trying to stay afloat. I don’t like the kids being used as pawns.”

Forbes Magazine has taken a different approach, by saying the problem isn't education budgets, Instead the problem is teachers health care and pensions. As if teachers don't need either.

Meanwhile, North Carolina teachers are planning a one-day walk-out on March 16.