Teachers union

Service Employees International Union Local 99 staged a three-day walkout in Los Angeles last week after negotiations failed. SEIU, which represents about 30,000 cafeteria workers, bus drivers, special education assistants, etc. called for a strike if their demands were not met by the Los Angeles Unified School District. And the United Teachers of Los Angeles decided to ditch school, too, in what was deemed a “sympathy strike.” The unions’ action forced every public school in LA to shut down from March 21 to March 23. It all played out in the usual way.

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten has had a busy two years. Keeping students out of schools, helping teachers fight for permanent, paid truancy, watching her liberal columnist friends write slobbering, glowing profiles of her in the New York Times — these are things that can really take it out of a woman. So, Cockburn has absolutely no patience for the right-wing internet trolls (or Russian bots, possibly?) who had a good laugh at Ms. Weingarten’s expense this week after she had a small spelling error on Twitter. “We #StandWithUkriane,” Weingarten wrote on Wednesday in a since-deleted post. Big deal, says Cockburn. She was only one letter off, which is almost as good as spelling “Ukraine” correctly. Ms.