Today, like many other West Australian teachers, I'm not going to work this morning.

It's interesting that our industrial action is represented in the media as about pay. We're not striking over salary - we're striking because the system is broken.

My son has had no Phys Ed teacher all year. He's had a procession of relief teachers which, for a special needs child, is extremely distressing. He attends an inner city public school, but staffing shortages are statewide.

Speaking of special needs students, I'd like to look after my own without having to skip lunch to ensure their needs are met.

I'd like the Education Department to give me a personal device so I can do my job
(more efficiently). If I want a laptop, I have to lease one.

I'd like an acknowledgement of how teaching has recently become more difficult and demanding, especially during #COVID19, when we kept schools open and tried to keep students safe.

I enforced the mask mandate far more often than a rank-and-file police officer. I've probably been threatened and assaulted more times than many police officers too. And the statewide mobile phone ban? Guess who enforces that every single day.

So many of my colleagues have left teaching: re-trained or resigned due to burnout and stress. Who suffers? The students.

It's not about the pay. We're tired, and we need support. We're underfunded and under-resourced. We need to improve conditions for students. We need to fix the system.

#sstuwa #union #unions #industrialaction #teachers #teaching #westernaustralia #Perth #solidarity #FixEd #australia #stopwork #strike

Die Amerikaner wissen nichts über die wahre Geschichte.

Wussten Sie, dass 12 Millionen Deutsche nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg ethnisch gesäubert wurden?

Wussten Sie, dass eine halbe Million von ihnen ermordet wurden, weil sie Deutsch sprachen? Dass Kinder in einer Reihe aufgestellt und erschossen wurden? „Weit über zwei Millionen Frauen und Kinder wurden am Ende des Krieges vergewaltigt. Viele von ihnen starben oder begingen Selbstmord.“ In der Tschechoslowakei stellte man deutsche Zivilisten (viele von ihnen lebten dort seit Jahrhunderten) in einer Reihe auf und überfuhr sie mit Lastwagen. Man zwang sie, ihre eigenen Gräber auszuheben. Nicht alle von ihnen waren Deutsche. Manche von ihnen sprachen einfach nur Deutsch. 12 Millionen deutsche Zivilisten wurden aus Osteuropa vertrieben – man raubte ihnen gewaltsam ihre Häuser, ihr Eigentum und ihre Staatsbürgerschaft, weil sie Deutsch sprachen. Hunderttausende von ihnen verhungerten. Diese ethnische Vertreibung war die größte in der Menschheitsgeschichte, und dennoch haben Sie nie davon gehört. Warum? Ich möchte jedem empfehlen, sich diesen Dokumentarfilm anzusehen.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7uflp0

#AFD #NoAFD #Rassismus
#Linke #DieLinke #SED #Kommunismus #Sozialismus
#CDUCSU #Grundsatzprogramm #Union #antimuslimischerRassismus #ZentralratderMuslimeinDeutschland #Rassismus #Deutschland #Politik #Schwerpunkt
#CancelCulture #Diffamierung #Boykottaufrufe = #NAZI #AFD #NoAFD #NoNazi
Stalinistischer Aufruf sich von Mitmenschen wegen Kontaktschuld zu distanzieren, ist unmenschlich und vor allem demokratiefeindlich!
#Demokratiefeinde = #Grüne #SPD

On June 21, 1877, the authorities hanged ten Irish miners in a single day in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Known as Black Thursday, or Day of the Rope, it was the second largest mass execution in U.S. history. (The largest was in 1862, when the U.S. government executed 38 Dakota warriors). They convicted the Irishmen of murder, and accused them of being terrorists from a secret organization called the Molly Maguires. They executed ten more over the next two years, and imprisoned another twenty suspected Molly Maguires. Most of the convicted men were union activists. Some even held public office, as sheriffs and school board members.

However, there is no evidence that an organization called the Molly Maguires ever existed in the U.S. The only serious evidence against the men was presented by a spy, James McParland, working for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, who provided the plans and weapons the men purportedly used in their crimes. The entire legal process was a travesty: a private corporation (the Reading Railroad) set up the investigation through a private police force (the Pinkerton Detective Agency) and prosecuted them with their own company attorneys. No jurors were Irish, though several were recent German immigrants who had trouble understanding the proceedings.

Nearly everything people “know” today about the Molly Maguires comes from Allan Pinkerton’s own work of fiction, The Molly Maguires and the Detectives (1877), which he marketed as nonfiction. His heavily biased book was the primary source for dozens of academic works, and for several pieces of fiction, including Arthur Conan Doyle’s final Sherlock Holmes novel, Valley of Fear (1915), and the 1970 Sean Connery film, Molly Maguires.

My novel, Anywhere But Schuylkill, tells a truer story of these union miners and their persecution by the Pinkertons.

You can read my complete article on the Molly Maguires here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/13/the-myth-of-the-molly-maguires/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #MollyMaguires #union #Pinkertons #coal #mining #police #racism

Boeing union wants a board seat and a say on plane safety

#Boeing's largest #union is in contract talks with the beleaguered airplane company for the first time in more than a decade
— and it's seizing the moment to push for cultural change.

The International Association of Machinists is taking the opportunity to negotiate beyond standard line items like pay and retirement benefits — they want a real say in quality and safety standards.

"It's very important to us that we build a safe, quality airplane," Jon Holden, president of the 32,000-member International Association of Machinists District 751, said earlier this month as talks began.

The union represents 32,000 workers who assemble airplanes in factories in Washington state.

This is likely its "first time ever" proposing terms like this, Holden said.

As part of that effort, 🔸the union wants a seat on Boeing's board of directors🔸, Holden told the Financial Times this week.

"With what's going on these days, we are oftentimes the last line of defense," he told the paper. "We have to save this company from itself."

Union representatives on the board "would serve as a check on the CEO," Leeham News, a trade publication, wrote in January — urging a board shakeup at the company.

https://www.axios.com/2024/03/28/boeing-union-board-contract