SOLIDARITY OF THE WORKING CLASS IS NECESSARY FOR SURVIVAL

There is a major struggle now going on within the walls of Connecticut Juvenile Training School in Middletown, CT. Employees of the line staff seek to be free from draconian disciplinary actions against them and constant scrutiny by management. It is clear from data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act employees of color are fired more, written up, investigated or singled out for other things. Yet, it is also crystal clear CJTS management only goes after those employees [ ethnicity does not save you if a lower level employee] on the lower rungs of the economic scale: clinicians, top administrators, or teachers seem exempt from what Youth Service Officers ( who manage residents at this locked down facility) experience with frequency---harsh discipline. If change is going to take place- among the workers- at CJTS and other plantation like state run facilities, a major shift in praxis must occur. Solidarity of the working class is necessary among white, black, Latino etc. Only by promoting unity can management be forced to stop their ill treatment of employees whose only crime is to work in a different economic strata. Unity among workers in theory is fine, in reality it is hard to achieve.For years CJTS management played YSOs against each other: people busy beating on one another verbally did not focus on the real problem of inept & vindictive administrators. Now the wheel of change is turning.

However, certain employees refused to be victims of CJTS management and fought back using class action lawsuits and other means of civil disobedience; a level of consciousness raising has taken place and unity is at least more than a possibility. Looking at the disheartening  situation within CJTS ( as it relates to employees of lower economic status) unity seems a reasonable option---for survival. Change does not come through people hoping  tyranny, racism or bias vanishes. Unity among employees with like minded issues, focused on the theme of gaining freedom, bringing about change in conditions is the key.

For all workers at CJTS do not look far this Halloween for goblins, ghosts, hanks, spooks or monsters. Hell, you will see them coming ( as management) to scare employees of the lower economic strata.