ORLANDO (May 23)—“Unions are built for moments like this,” assured Becky Pringle, President of the National Education Association (NEA), when describing labor’s fight back against the Trump administration.
Pringle was speaking to close out the first day of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) 54th International Convention last Thursday. As leader of the largest teachers union in the U.S., she brought a confident perspective to the fight for democracy and workers’ rights currently underway.
“Public education—universal, free, quality education for all—is the foundation of this or any democracy,” Pringle said. “The Trump administration understands that if they can control what we know, they can control what we believe.”
In order to propagandize against democracy and working-class unity, the far-right continues to fuel a blame game against Black, LGBTQ, and immigrant communities, she said, while at the same time erasing these groups from history and school curriculums.
“We are witnessing a deliberate campaign to divide and distract, to blame immigrants and educators and federal employees, Black, Brown, and LGBTQ people. They’re blaming us for the systemic inequities that are baked into this country’s soil.”
The Trump administration’s two-tiered effort of scapegoating oppressed groups while attempting to erase them from history itself, is not only being called out but legislatively resisted, as well. Pringle celebrated a recent trifecta of wins by the NEA, NAACP, ACLU, and AFT that defend the rights of educators against Trump’s threat of an “End DEI” portal to report teachers.
Echoing the focus of other CBTU speakers and resolutions, Pringle reminded the delegates to push back against the stigmatization of Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI). “We cannot allow them to reduce this value to three letters, DEI, that’s why I’m saying everywhere I go, say the word!”
Pringle continued:
“Equity just means that we give our children what they need, when they need it! They’re firing half of the staff of the Department of Education and Trump’s executive order to dismantle the department will increase class size; arts and music will be gone; job training programs will disappear; higher education will become further out of reach for most families; and children with disabilities will be without desperately needed special education services.”
Lia Council, a special education teacher and Yonkers AFT member, also raised concern about the defunding of the Education Department, efforts against DEI, and Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s spreading of misinformation on autism.
She told People’s World that trade unionism and teaching go hand in hand “because teachers want the best for their students, and unionists want what is best for all workers.”
She described her appreciation for CBTU, describing it as “a coalition that is able to bring together organized labor from all different aspects,” giving the workers’ movement “a broader range and better grasp to challenge Donald Trump and his foolishness.”
As the delegates prepare for the rest of the weekend, CBTU members, and particularly the teachers here, are strategizing, debating, and planning to organize the critical fightback against the capitalist class’s full-throated assault on our rights, our unions, and our democracy.
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