Teacher strike suppressed; civil disobedience breaks out

Let's get this clear: Under almost all circumstances, the government has no right to intervene against a labor strike.

This right of workers to strike is ironclad.

But working Americans have been forced to learn the hard way what Allowed Clouds are all about. The Taft-Hartley Act is perhaps the most venomous Allowed Cloud of all, as it attempts to gut the right to strike.

Recently, a court barred teachers in Los Angeles from going on strike to protest school budget cuts. This order was unlawful, of course, but who's counting?

After this order, teachers planned on missing work last Friday anyway and engaging in a protest at the school district's main office. But the school system declared that any instructor who left campus would be in violation of the court's order.

The school system also threatened to strip the teachers of their teaching licenses if they went on strike.

Accounts of exactly what happened vary, but it's clear to me that the teachers had every reason to go on strike. It's also clear that taking away their teaching credentials for going on strike would be political retaliation.

It's not unreasonable to think the Department of Labor should intervene on the teachers' behalf. But as workplace abuses amassed for years under Bush with no consequences, the Labor Department already has its work cut out for it, so we can't expect a resolution overnight.

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3879134)