AFT members building community of labor; social justice educators

The labor movement is one of the basic social justice movements in this country, yet education about it “is virtually nonexistent in our schools,” says social studies teacher Bill Morgan.

Morgan, who teaches third grade at Cleveland Elementary School in San Francisco, is doing his part to fill that gap as a member of the California Federation of Teachers’ Labor in the Schools Committee.

This year, the committee is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Materials prepared by the committee, including a resource guide for teachers, are available to help educators nationwide who want to fill the labor knowledge gap, too (visit www.cft.org/about/comm/labor for more details).

The curricula, lesson plans and guides offered range from lessons on child labor, workers’ issues, struggles and accomplishments, and labor laws for youth.

Right now, Morgan is teaching his third-graders about local San Francisco history from the perspective of working people—the people who built the city. “Most of my kids are Spanish-speaking, so the issue of labor gets into a whole lot of other issues, including immigration, poverty and child labor,” he explains, adding that regardless of the composition of a student population, lessons about the labor movement are something students can relate to.

“There is almost an instant interest when you start talking about work. Kids talk about the jobs their moms and dads have, and what they want to do when they grow up. They are really aware of the world of work,” he says.

Committee chair Linda Tubach, a former high school social studies teacher and head of the Collective Bargaining Education Project, a secondary social studies program launched by the committee, says the lack of information about the labor movement in textbooks reflects a cultural bias in favor of the entrepreneur in economic and political history—and against working people and their organizations.

“History books generally have a negative bias toward unions,” says Tubach. “Unions are generally linked to strikes and violence.”

The committee has made inroads in labor education at both the elementary and secondary levels, as well as within the California Legislature, which in 2001 established the Speaker’s Commission on Labor Education to “promote and preserve awareness of labor’s history and contributions to California’s educational system.”