Intercepts
A listening post monitoring public education and teachers’ unions.

Where is Inside Labor and who drove it off the Internet?

It may be coincidental, but I find it disturbing when a site that has existed for more than a year gets wiped from the blogosphere a mere four days after it receives a favorable mention and a link here on Intercepts.

Here’s all I know:

Inside Labor, launched in July 2005 by a blogger known only as “Laborite,” contained much news and unique information about America’s labor unions, with sometimes pointed commentary. However, there was no doubt that Laborite was pro-union. In one of his/her last entries, Laborite posted a lengthy examination of AFT’s organizing plans, and cited material available only to AFT leaders and top staff. If you want to view Inside Labor as it was last seen, visit the Google cache. The AFT entry is July 20.

Soon after I mentioned the blog here, it disappeared from Blogger. Soon after that, an auto insurance company grabbed the domain name.

I wouldn’t have made much of this development, but then I came across this. Before disappearing, Laborite apparently posted the message, “When the cyber-attack stops, the blog goes back up.”

This is outrageous. If, through the magic of the Internet, Laborite sees this, he/she can post here, unedited, until Inside Labor finds a new home. I hope others who may have a longer history with Laborite will come to Inside Labor‘s defense.

As I write this, I’m certain officials and staff of the Oklahoma Education Association, in concert with their colleagues at NEA, are crafting a statement to explain why today’s dismissal, with prejudice, of their public education “adequacy and equity” in funding lawsuit, isn’t really a defeat. Or maybe the spin will be that it is evidence of the right wing’s control over the judicial system. Or something. I have confidence in the union’s PR professionals.

The lawsuit was filed with much fanfare, with the help of a three-year, $5 per member annual assessment, and certainly a great deal of legal and staff help from NEA. You can read all the buildup on OEA’s web site.

Five dollars isn’t a lot of money, but I’m thinking that right about now, OEA members would rather have used it for a hefty latte and a muffin rather than court fees for a frivolous lawsuit.

Some other countries have much more entertaining teachers’ unions than we have. Take for instance South Korea.

The Busan chapter of the Korean Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union held a seminar last year for its members, and authorities have only just learned that more than two-thirds of a 92-page booklet distributed to union members was lifted verbatim from a North Korean history textbook.

The book is filled with North Korean propaganda, which is well-known for its lack of subtlety. One passage reads, “The hero Gen. Kim Il-sung, revered and fervently awaited by his Korean brethren, emerged in a commanding manner.”

The material is occasionally educational. I, for one, didn’t know that Great Leader was a libertarian. “The people of North Korea are the happy few at last liberated from taxation for the first time in the world,” reads an excerpt.

The Digital Chosunilbo found the union antics less amusing. In an editorial headlined, “Teachers’ Union Headed Over the Cliff,” the editors declared, “The union spreads outmoded ideologies, turns education into a battleground, pits teacher against teacher depending on whether they are members, and disrupts every program it finds arduous or disadvantageous to it such as teacher evaluations, performance bonuses, English education at the primary level, stratifying students by academic ability, extra-curricular activities, independent private high schools and foreign-language high schools.”

I reported yesterday that “all 39 vice presidents” of AFT were returned to office. That was incorrect. What actually happened was that 32 vice presidents were returned to office, and 7 new ones were elected to open seats. No one was defeated for reelection. EIA apologizes for the error.

Click here to read:

1) AFT Goes on Record in Opposition to War in Iraq
2) Delegates Pass “Boycott Wal-Mart” Resolution
3) Shock Result! Everyone Reelected
4) Today’s Commie Commentary
5) Scheduling Note
6) Quote of the Day

It has been a long slog, but the AFT Convention wrapped up at 11:45 a.m. by referring all left-over resolutions to the union’s Executive Council. Delegates in the half-empty hall finished things by singing “Solidarity Forever.”

All I could think of was how cool it would have been if Ed McElroy had said, “Before we adjourn, let us all join hands and rock out with a chorus of Aqualung!”

Until today I had never heard of the Inside Labor blog, but the pro-labor site has, quite frankly, much better information about AFT’s internal problems than anything I’ve been able to turn up this week.

It might also cause some chagrin at AFT HQ that the blogger, identified only as Laborite, is a lot more critical of the union’s “culture of organizing” plan than I’ve been.

It’s a lengthy blog entry, but well worth reading all of it.