'We Need To Learn From History': Virginia Workers Ask State To Not Erase Labor History

[appalachiablue]

- NBC12, April 19, 2023. ‘We need to learn from history’: Va. workers ask state to not erase labor history.

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - Virginia workers are calling on the State Board of Education to not erase labor history from Virginia schools. Virginia workers and labor union leaders representing over 300,000 state workers gathered Wednesday in downtown Richmond regarding the potential removal.

The group delivered more than 4,000 petitions. “These standards fail at every level, and while the board can try to whitewash history, I promise they will not ultimately succeed,” Virginia Education Association President James Fedderman said. On Wednesday, the board spent hours taking a deep-dive review of the proposal, breaking down the third draft by grade level.

The Virginia Department of Education says these revised standards would offer content specific to each grade that focuses on essential skills, state and national symbols, United States and world history. “A lot of people won’t understand what I think will happen here today,” Board President Daniel Grecker said. “I expect as we come out of today, people will have a greater appreciation for what the board’s thinking is on the standards, and hopefully being some in accord with where we’re going.”

Labor leader Doris Crouse-Mays is also one of many who spoke on Wednesday. “We need to learn from our history, not erase it,” she told NBC12. The president of Virginia AFL-CIO says the current draft no longer includes the rise of organized labor during the progressive era and the industrial revolution’s impact on the labor movement. “Labor built this state. Labor built this country. Everything was built on our backs. We’ll continue the fight to continue to have it in the history books,” Crouse-Mays said.

The Board of Education is set to have a final review of the standards during its next meeting on Thursday, April 20. The meeting starts at 9 a.m. and public comment will be accepted. --https://www.nbc12.com/2023/04/19/we-need-learn-history-va-workers-ask-state-not-erase-labor-history/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Republicans are trying to erase the New Deal

Labor history is just part of it. This has been a GOP wet dream since the 1930s. Before Orange boy even existed.

[appalachiablue]

2. Yes, they hated FDR, Keynesian economics & the New Deal from the start. Then the Great Society.

The demolition has been planned and in process for decades. The Business Plot in 1934 to replace FDR which Smedley Butler thwarted, then McCarthy and the Red Scare, Nixon and Reagan. The rise of free market libertarians, the Kochs and Uncle Miltie. Lewis Powell's 1972 Memo stimulated the creation of major think tanks, the massive lobbyist industry and a vast unregulated far right media. Democracy is at risk from these powerful anti gov, anti democratic forces and more. I hope Americans are up to the urgent challenges we now face.

- Explaining the erosion of private-sector unions, Economic Policy Institute, Nov. 18, 2020. How corporate practices & legal changes have undercut the ability of workers to organize & bargain
https://www.epi.org/unequalpower/publications/private-sector-unions-corporate-legal-erosion/