LABOR EDUCATION

Our children are being systematically denied their education in the history of labor and the true purposes and conditions of the unions. The Knights of Labor, Haymarket, the Pullman Strike, the Ludlow Massacre, Lawrence, the Wobblies, Gompers and AFL, the CIO, the Age of Meany-all get paragraphs in the history books while the robber barons and other big business buccaneers get pages. The law schools teach anti-union tactics to prospective company lawyers, while colleges and universities educate in sophisticated union breaking Even the junior colleges use tax money to teach "labor relations" to budding personnel managers. A number of states require courses in "free enterprise" for their high school students, exposing students to the history and economics of businesses interests only. Meanwhile, good labor history courses are few and far between.

Even "public" television denies unions the right to present the story of the great majority of Americans, on whose blood, sweat, and tears this country has been built, while weekly running the anti-union message of the corporations' favorite conservative economist.

Now, as school systems across the country suffer funding shortages, big business has moved into the breach and is offering free educational materials with an anti-labor bias to further propagandize our children and shape the attitudes of future generations.

Some years ago, other American subgroups, seeing themselves oppressed, their history stunted, omitted, or lied about, campaigned successfully for their proper place in the nation's curriculum. Since then, Black Studies, Indian Studies, and Women's Studies have become commonplace in school and college alike. The history of workers is a necessary part of the education of our school children.

WHEREAS, a union representing workers who are the backbone of the American education system from child care to graduate school, AFT is in an excellent position to do something about this; and

WHEREAS, many members of the AFT are from families without experience in the labor movement, and, through their formal education and experience have had little or no systematic education in the history and philosophy of the labor movement; and

WHEREAS, a labor education program can strengthen our organization immeasurably:

RESOLVED, that labor takes its proper place in the American curriculum; and

RESOLVED, that together with other unions and concerned organizations, AFT will campaign for labor education at all levels of the American educational system; and