A couple days before election
day my brother, who lives in North Carolina, gave me a call. Both of us serve as Presidents: Me for a labor
union and he for a corporation. As you might expect, our perspectives on things
like elections can be quite different. While
this is often the case, I have detected in my sibling a new curiosity about his
west coast brother’s perspectives on politics in general and labor specifically.
First, it was the Chicago
Teacher’s Strike he wanted to know about.
So I told him. I explained to him
the issue of standardized testing as a component of a teacher’s evaluation, and
why this issue was so important to not only Chicago teachers, but Chicago
parents as well, who overwhelmingly supported the strike.
He then asked me about the
involvement of our union in the election.
I said to him, “You know when you hear a campaign talk about the “ground
game” in a campaign? That’s us. We’re
the people volunteering on the phones, knocking at your door and standing on a busy street
corner in the rain waiving signs.”
His response: “I never knew any of this
stuff. How come I don’t hear anything
about these things?”
This response is exactly the
reaction I’ve had to the post-election commentary that has inundated the
airwaves. Our political punditry is filled with talk of
strategies that did or did not work, messages that resonated with voters or
didn’t, and an analysis of campaign gaffes that may have turned the election
one way or another. What is almost never
talked about is the fact that the ultimately more authentic difference maker in
this election and many others is that ground game I told my brother about.
I must admit that there are
parts of me that like to think of myself as above the political fray. “Politics is a dirty game,” I sometimes
think. “Let others play that game. It’s not for me.” But when you spend time with the educators of
the Edmonds, Northshore and Shoreline Education Associations as they do the
hard work of supporting pro-public education candidates, the work doesn’t seem
dirty at all. In fact, it is
inspirational to be with educators who demonstrate their dedication to their
students, colleagues and communities by doing the hard work that an election
season requires.
What did we accomplish?
We elected a governor that
has pledged to protect collective bargaining. This reaffirms the bargaining
table as a powerful place to have our collective voices heard as we advocate
for our students and our ability to take care of our own families as we do
so.
We Re-elected State Senator
Rosemary McAuliffe, a proven advocate of public education, and effectively
resisted the tidal wave of money for negative campaigning her opponent received
from so-called education reform groups like Stand for Children.
We elected State Representative
Gerry Pollet. Gerry is another proven
advocate of public education. Gerry also
ran against a tidal wave of cash provided by groups like Stand.
These are major victories and
we should celebrate. Congratulations to us all; Special thanks go to the real
people who did the real work to support a real public education system in
Washington State.
-David Guthrie
