Letters

Right to strike
EDITORS: I want to express my appreciation for the April Illinois Issues' thoughtful debate on teachers' right to strike. Mr. Weirs reminder that " no Illinois statute prohibits strikes by teachers" stands in sharp contrast to Mr. Bergren's straitjacket approach to citizen's rights, i.e. "There is nothing in the United States or Illinois constitutions giving any citizen the right to strike." Apparently, Bergren feels that any actions beyond these narrow confines can be legitimately suppressed. This is in direct contradiction to the Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Unfortunately, the workplace, be it "public" or "private," has remained a bastion of sovereignty by a privileged managerial elite. Even a cursory reading of American labor history makes clear that without the ongoing struggle of. labor organizations to secure countervailing power against this managerial privilege, American workers would be denied the rights of free speech, free association, and the necessary control over working conditions. Workers in the public sector should not be expected to remain second-class citizens simply because of their occupational identity.

The "profound" differences between private and public management that Bergren cites are actually rather shallow. Public sector managers are trained and enjoined by their superiors to extract from their employees the maximum productivity for the minimum cost in wages and other compensations. Furthermore, as Weil points out, teachers' contract disputes with management often focus on questions of quality education for students. In fact, teachers have frequently shown more concern for establishing optimal learning conditions than have school managers.

We are in the midst of an apparently unbreakable inflationary spiral. The responsibility for this spiral lies with the managerial elite and not with the average public sector worker whose annual income often falls short of the "moderate standard" set by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Teachers and other public employees are caught up in a struggle to provide a decent living for their families and quality services for their students/clients. Success in that struggle depends upon legally guaranteed collective bargaining with the legally safeguarded right to strike.

July 1977 / Illinois Issues / 23