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More than 50 percent of teachers at Detroit's public schools called in sick Monday. (Photo: WFIU Public Radio/flickr/cc)
Detroit teachers on Monday organized a "sick-out" to call attention to the school district's "abominable" problems, including filthy buildings and overwhelmingly large class sizes, and called on officials to follow through on long-held promises to salvage the city's educational system.
"Detroit kids matter!" teachers chanted at a rally Monday afternoon at the A.L. Holmes Elementary School, which they say is infested with mice and beset by structural problems, such as wet ceilings and broken entry steps.
One educator taking part in the rally, Theresa Williams of Burton International Academy, held up a sign that read, "I have 39 first-graders in my classroom."
According to the Detroit Free Press, nearly 60 public schools were closed Monday, with more than 50 percent of the teachers at those schools calling in sick over the "deplorable environmental and learning conditions that Emergency Manager Darnell Earley has long ignored." The Press ran a list of the schools closed by the action.
Ivy Bailey, interim president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT), said Monday, "The deplorable conditions in our schools have created a serious environmental and educational crisis that is being ignored."
"The children of Detroit, Flint or any other community should not be exposed to atrocious, environmental hazards," Bailey said.
Among the teachers' demands are improved working and learning conditions, decreasing classroom sizes, increasing teachers' benefits and salaries, and restoring local control to the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) system, which was revoked in 2009.
Hours after the rally, state superintendent Brian Whiston, the top school official, called on Earley to respond to the teachers' demands and address their health and safety concerns, including rodent infestations, crumbling walls, broken equipment, and no heat, accompanied by staff and supply shortages--conditions which Bailey said have only worsened since the economically devastated city was placed under emergency management.
"I care deeply about the safety and well-being of teachers in Detroit, just as I do the students," Whiston said. "They all still need to be in the classrooms teaching and learning, though. If buildings have health and safety issues, they need to be addressed immediately with the district administration and all appropriate agencies."
At the rally, Kimberly Jackson, a seventh-grade teacher at Paul Robeson Malcolm X Academy, told supporters, "No other district ... would allow their children to be inside a school building under those conditions. Many of our (classes) are way oversized--some with as many as 50 children inside one classroom. It's time out for that. It's time out for biz as usual, it's time out for working in deplorable schools."
"We are set up for failure," Jackson said. "Our goal is not to shut the schools down. Our goal is to have a quality education for our children. ... We've been trying to make do with what we have. Our children deserve better."
Jaime Diaz-Herrara, whose child is a student at Western International High School, said Monday, "I wouldn't consider a classroom of 45 kids conducive to teaching and learning. I wouldn't say that a classroom with black mold creeping up the walls is conductive to teaching and learning. I wouldn't say that roaches and rats scampering through hallways are conducive to teaching and learning. It's disgusting, unsafe, unhealthy and not the way we should be educating our kids in Detroit or anywhere else."
The sick-out follows a meeting by a group called Detroit Strikes to Win, which gathered Sunday night to discuss the action and a possible district-wide strike.
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Detroit teachers on Monday organized a "sick-out" to call attention to the school district's "abominable" problems, including filthy buildings and overwhelmingly large class sizes, and called on officials to follow through on long-held promises to salvage the city's educational system.
"Detroit kids matter!" teachers chanted at a rally Monday afternoon at the A.L. Holmes Elementary School, which they say is infested with mice and beset by structural problems, such as wet ceilings and broken entry steps.
One educator taking part in the rally, Theresa Williams of Burton International Academy, held up a sign that read, "I have 39 first-graders in my classroom."
According to the Detroit Free Press, nearly 60 public schools were closed Monday, with more than 50 percent of the teachers at those schools calling in sick over the "deplorable environmental and learning conditions that Emergency Manager Darnell Earley has long ignored." The Press ran a list of the schools closed by the action.
Ivy Bailey, interim president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT), said Monday, "The deplorable conditions in our schools have created a serious environmental and educational crisis that is being ignored."
"The children of Detroit, Flint or any other community should not be exposed to atrocious, environmental hazards," Bailey said.
Among the teachers' demands are improved working and learning conditions, decreasing classroom sizes, increasing teachers' benefits and salaries, and restoring local control to the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) system, which was revoked in 2009.
Hours after the rally, state superintendent Brian Whiston, the top school official, called on Earley to respond to the teachers' demands and address their health and safety concerns, including rodent infestations, crumbling walls, broken equipment, and no heat, accompanied by staff and supply shortages--conditions which Bailey said have only worsened since the economically devastated city was placed under emergency management.
"I care deeply about the safety and well-being of teachers in Detroit, just as I do the students," Whiston said. "They all still need to be in the classrooms teaching and learning, though. If buildings have health and safety issues, they need to be addressed immediately with the district administration and all appropriate agencies."
At the rally, Kimberly Jackson, a seventh-grade teacher at Paul Robeson Malcolm X Academy, told supporters, "No other district ... would allow their children to be inside a school building under those conditions. Many of our (classes) are way oversized--some with as many as 50 children inside one classroom. It's time out for that. It's time out for biz as usual, it's time out for working in deplorable schools."
"We are set up for failure," Jackson said. "Our goal is not to shut the schools down. Our goal is to have a quality education for our children. ... We've been trying to make do with what we have. Our children deserve better."
Jaime Diaz-Herrara, whose child is a student at Western International High School, said Monday, "I wouldn't consider a classroom of 45 kids conducive to teaching and learning. I wouldn't say that a classroom with black mold creeping up the walls is conductive to teaching and learning. I wouldn't say that roaches and rats scampering through hallways are conducive to teaching and learning. It's disgusting, unsafe, unhealthy and not the way we should be educating our kids in Detroit or anywhere else."
The sick-out follows a meeting by a group called Detroit Strikes to Win, which gathered Sunday night to discuss the action and a possible district-wide strike.
Detroit teachers on Monday organized a "sick-out" to call attention to the school district's "abominable" problems, including filthy buildings and overwhelmingly large class sizes, and called on officials to follow through on long-held promises to salvage the city's educational system.
"Detroit kids matter!" teachers chanted at a rally Monday afternoon at the A.L. Holmes Elementary School, which they say is infested with mice and beset by structural problems, such as wet ceilings and broken entry steps.
One educator taking part in the rally, Theresa Williams of Burton International Academy, held up a sign that read, "I have 39 first-graders in my classroom."
According to the Detroit Free Press, nearly 60 public schools were closed Monday, with more than 50 percent of the teachers at those schools calling in sick over the "deplorable environmental and learning conditions that Emergency Manager Darnell Earley has long ignored." The Press ran a list of the schools closed by the action.
Ivy Bailey, interim president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT), said Monday, "The deplorable conditions in our schools have created a serious environmental and educational crisis that is being ignored."
"The children of Detroit, Flint or any other community should not be exposed to atrocious, environmental hazards," Bailey said.
Among the teachers' demands are improved working and learning conditions, decreasing classroom sizes, increasing teachers' benefits and salaries, and restoring local control to the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) system, which was revoked in 2009.
Hours after the rally, state superintendent Brian Whiston, the top school official, called on Earley to respond to the teachers' demands and address their health and safety concerns, including rodent infestations, crumbling walls, broken equipment, and no heat, accompanied by staff and supply shortages--conditions which Bailey said have only worsened since the economically devastated city was placed under emergency management.
"I care deeply about the safety and well-being of teachers in Detroit, just as I do the students," Whiston said. "They all still need to be in the classrooms teaching and learning, though. If buildings have health and safety issues, they need to be addressed immediately with the district administration and all appropriate agencies."
At the rally, Kimberly Jackson, a seventh-grade teacher at Paul Robeson Malcolm X Academy, told supporters, "No other district ... would allow their children to be inside a school building under those conditions. Many of our (classes) are way oversized--some with as many as 50 children inside one classroom. It's time out for that. It's time out for biz as usual, it's time out for working in deplorable schools."
"We are set up for failure," Jackson said. "Our goal is not to shut the schools down. Our goal is to have a quality education for our children. ... We've been trying to make do with what we have. Our children deserve better."
Jaime Diaz-Herrara, whose child is a student at Western International High School, said Monday, "I wouldn't consider a classroom of 45 kids conducive to teaching and learning. I wouldn't say that a classroom with black mold creeping up the walls is conductive to teaching and learning. I wouldn't say that roaches and rats scampering through hallways are conducive to teaching and learning. It's disgusting, unsafe, unhealthy and not the way we should be educating our kids in Detroit or anywhere else."
The sick-out follows a meeting by a group called Detroit Strikes to Win, which gathered Sunday night to discuss the action and a possible district-wide strike.
"Call it what it is: a pay cut and a betrayal of the working people," said One Fair Wage.
With backing from the restaurant lobby, the Washington, D.C. city council voted Monday to gut plans to raise wages for tipped workers, which had already been approved by the public.
It's the second time the council has overturned a wage increase for tipped workers that the public voted for, having already done so once in 2018.
Under federal law, tipped workers are allowed to be paid a much lower minimum wage—just $2.13 per hour compared with $7.25 for nontipped workers. Tipped workers are, consequentially, more likely to live in poverty.
This is the case in Washington, D.C., where, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute, 7.7% of tipped workers live in poverty compared to 2.6% of nontipped workers.
In 2022, D.C. voters overwhelmingly voted to address this problem, supporting Initiative 82, which would have gradually raised the minimum wage for tipped workers—just over $5.35 an hour at the time—to match what other workers receive by 2027.
In 2022, D.C.'s standard minimum wage—which increases each year pegged to inflation—was $16.10. As of 2025, it has increased to $17.95.
As the initiative to raise the tipped minimum wage began, restaurant industry lobbying groups like the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington (RAMW) fought tooth-and-nail to roll it back.
In Jacobin, Raeghn Draper wrote that this group, and others like it around the country, "claim to speak on behalf of restaurant workers, but they are not worker organizations."
Instead, Draper wrote, "They are extensions of the National Restaurant Association (NRA), an industry group historically aligned with large corporate chains like McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Olive Garden—none exactly known for their commitment to workers' rights or well-being."
These groups waged an aggressive disinformation campaign, claiming that by phasing out the subminimum wage, restaurants, crushed by their increasing operating costs, would be forced to close en masse.
The RAMW even touted a survey of its own member restaurants purporting to show that 44% of full-service casual restaurants would have no choice but to close their doors by the end of 2025 due to the policy.
As Draper points out, citing data from an independent investigation by D.C.'s Office of the Budget Director, "the number of D.C. restaurant closures in 2024 did rise slightly compared to the previous year, but restaurant openings also increased, outpacing closures by a margin of two to one."
A study by the EPI likewise found that—despite industry claims that the higher wage requirements were forcing restaurants to lay off their employees—D.C. was seeing more employment growth than other towns in the region without requirements to raise wages.
But media outlets uncritically reported the restaurant industry's narrative about mass closures, and their attempts to "manufacture a crisis," as Draper says, paid off.
While making public appearances with restaurant industry lobbyists, Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser signed legislation halting the wage increases in June—freezing the tipped minimum wage at $10 an hour. She pushed for a full repeal, which would have knocked the tipped wage back down to $8 an hour. But the city council voted it down.
On Monday, despite fierce protests from workers and unions, the city council voted 7-5 to freeze the tipped wage at $10 until July 2026, when it will increase by a measly five cents. They also voted to dramatically slow the tipped wage increases to just 5% each year until 2034, when it will be capped at 75% of the standard minimum wage.
Members of the council, as well as many media outlets, including Axios and The Washington Post, described the decision as a "compromise" between employers and workers. RAMW, which lamented that it was "not a full repeal," has portrayed it that way, though it nevertheless described it as a "win for the industry."
Fair wage activists, however, described it not as a compromise, but an assault on a hard-won democratic victory.
"In what world is this a compromise?" asked One Fair Wage, one of the groups that campaigned for the initiative. "Call it what it is: a pay cut and a betrayal of the working people."
"D.C. Council just voted to overturn the will of the people and freeze wages for tipped workers," said the Fair Budget Coalition in a post on X following the vote. "As rents and other costs rise, it is a CHOICE to maintain a subminimum wage for struggling D.C. residents."
According to EPI, a person living in Washington, D.C. needs to earn just under $31 an hour to afford the cost of living. The average wage paid to tipped workers like bartenders, waiters, and waitresses falls several dollars short of this.
"The voters told us what they wanted when they voted overwhelmingly for I-82—twice—and this is not it," said Brianne Nadeau, one of the council members who voted against reversing the wage hikes. "Restaurant workers and the organizations that represent them have been fighting this battle for wage protections for years, and they shouldn't have to keep fighting it. And this council should not keep on telling the voters they don't know what's best for themselves."
"The council chose corporate lobbyists over tipped workers," said One Fair Wage. To the council members who voted for it, they said: "We see you. We won't forget."
Even right-wing Brazilian politicians are condemning Trump's actions as "an unacceptable attempt at foreign interference."
U.S. President Donald Trump is facing international condemnation for his decision to level sanctions against Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes in a bid to punish him for overseeing the criminal trial of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a longtime Trump ally.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that Brazilian political leaders are not backing down in the face of Trump's economic warfare, which includes not only sanctions against Moraes but also 50% tariffs on several key Brazilian exports to the United States, including coffee and beef.
Chamber of Deputies member José Guimarães, a member of the left-wing Partido dos Trabalhadores, described Trump's actions as "a direct attack on Brazilian democracy and sovereignty" and vowed that "we will not accept foreign interference in... our justice system."
Left-wing politicians weren't the only ones to criticize the sanctions and tariffs, as right-wing Partido Novo founder João Amoêdo condemned them as "an unacceptable attempt at foreign interference in the Brazilian justice system." Eduardo Leite, the conservative governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, said he refused to accept "another country trying to interfere in our institutions" as Trump has done.
In justifying the sanctions and tariffs, the Trump White House said they were a measure to combat what it described as "the government of Brazil's politically motivated persecution, intimidation, harassment, censorship, and prosecution of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and thousands of his supporters."
Bolsonaro is currently on trial for undertaking an alleged coup plot to prevent the country's current president, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, from taking power after his victory in Brazil's 2022 presidential election.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of the former president, openly celebrated Trump's punitive measures against Brazil this week, which earned him a stiff rebuke from the editorial board of Folha de São Paulo, one of Brazil's largest daily newspapers. In their piece, the Folha editors labeled Eduardo Bolsonaro an "enemy of Brazil" and said he was behaving like "a buffoon at the feet of a foreign throne" with his open lobbying of the Trump administration to punish his own country.
Elsewhere in the world, the U.K.-based magazine The Economist leveled Trump for his Brazil sanctions, which it described as an "unprecedented" assault on the country's sovereignty. The magazine also outlined the considerable evidence that the former Brazilian president took part in a coup plot, including a plan written out by Bolsonaro deputy chief of staff Mario Fernandes to assassinate or kidnap Lula and Moraes before the end of Bolsonaro's lone presidential term.
U.S. government reform advocacy group Public Citizen was also quick to condemn Trump's actions, which it described as a "shameless power grab."
"Trump's order sets a horrifying precedent that literally any domestic judicial action or democratically enacted policy set by another country could somehow justify a U.S. national emergency and bestow the president with powers far beyond what the Constitution provides," said Melinda St. Louis, global trade watch director at Public Citizen.
St. Louis also predicted that the tariffs on Brazil would soon be tossed out by courts given their capricious justifications, although she said the reputation of the U.S. would suffer "lasting damage."
"Follow the money," one critic wrote in response to the Justice Department's decision to drop an antitrust case against American Express Global Business Travel.
The U.S. Justice Department this week dropped an antitrust case against a company represented by the lobbying firm that employed Pam Bondi before her confirmation as attorney general earlier this year.
American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) has paid the lobbying giant Ballard Partners hundreds of thousands of dollars this year to pressure Bondi's Justice Department on "antitrust issues," according to federal disclosures.
The DOJ's decision to drop the antitrust lawsuit, which was initially filed during the final days of the Biden administration, allows Amex GBT's acquisition of rival CWT Holdings to move forward despite concerns that the merger would harm competition in the travel management sector. Amex GBT said it was "pleased" the DOJ dropped the case ahead of trial, which was set to begin in September.
Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel for the anti-monopoly American Economic Liberties Project, called the Justice Department's move "so so so corrupt" and urged observers to "follow the money."
Amex GBT paid Ballard Partners $50,000 in the first quarter of 2025 and $150,000 in the second quarter to lobby the Justice Department. Jon Golinger, democracy advocate with Public Citizen, said last week that "the American people deserve to know whether Attorney General Bondi has been involved with her former firm's lobbying and if the red carpet is being rolled out for these clients by the Department of Justice because of her former role at Ballard."
"If Bondi has been involved with the Ballard firm's lobbying, she has likely violated the ethics pledge," Golinger added. "The American people deserve an attorney general who always puts their needs above the special interest agendas of former business associates."
Scrutiny of the Justice Department's decision to drop the Amex GBT case comes amid allegations of corruption surrounding the DOJ's merger settlement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks last month. It also comes days after the Justice Department fired two of its top antitrust officials.
The American Prospect's David Dayen noted Tuesday that the Justice Department's voluntary dismissal of the Amex GBT lawsuit means the case—unlike the Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper settlement—doesn't have to face a Tunney Act review.
In a statement to the Prospect, a Justice Department spokesperson denied that Bondi had any involvement in the antitrust division's decision to drop the Amex GBT case.
"The smell of corruption has gotten bad enough that they're trying to shape the information environment," Dayen wrote in response to the DOJ statement.