SOLIDARITY IN THE TEACHERS` UNION

To the Editors of The Crimson:

An error occurred in your story, "Judge Fines Teachers' Union; Boston Walkout in Third Day" (Wed., Sept. 24), reporting my address to a Spartacus youth League Forum which seriously endangers black-white unity in the union's struggle. In this report you infer I stated that '''about half' of Boston's 1000 black teachers crossed picket lines." What I actually stated was that the radio reported that one half of the 225 members of the Black Educator's Alliance, not all Boston teachers, voted Monday night at Freedom House to go to school to protect endangered black schoolchildren, particularly in racist areas; they additionally stated that despite this action they were in full solidarity with the aims of the strike.

On Tuesday very few of the less than 500 teachers and aides (out of 6000 union members) who crossed picket lines were black. And Tuesday night union officials met with the Black Educator's Alliance. The result of that meeting was an announcement of the formation of the Black Caucus of the Boston Teachers Union which immediately issued the following press release: "This evening, the Black Caucus of the Boston Teachers Union unanimously supported the present strike by the Boston Teachers Union." Unfortunately for the school committee, which interpreted the Freedom House meeting as signifying that black teachers would break the strike, black teachers and aides are completely behind the most solid strike in the history of the union.

Also I did not take the "union to task for 'feeding the racists' by failing to achieve complete solidarity in the strike." Rather I criticized the union leadership for policies--"neutrality" on busing and a one year delay of Phase 2--which serve the racists and threaten black-white unity in this immediate struggle and are obstacles to the development of a common struggle of the labor movement and oppressed minorities against all the government cutbacks and layoffs affecting working people in this period of capitalist austerity. Robert Pearlman