Welcome to another episode of the vast majority. I'm Jack Mendipity editor, Micah, you tricked.

There's some very tragic news out of Chicago earlier this week when the Chicago Teachers Union announced the death of

former president Karen Lewis at age 67

Hopefully listeners to this podcast are somewhat familiar with Karen Lewis. She was incredibly

charismatic union leader that took over the Chicago Teachers Union as president in 2010 as part of a

Democratic and militant reform slate of leadership within that union called the caucus of rank and file educators

I wrote a book about the caucus of rank and file educators in the CTU in the 2012 strike called strike for America Chicago teachers against austerity

That gets into some of that history

But it was through the activism and the organizing of rank and file teachers like Karen and the other members of core

Who won union leadership in 2010 and really turned that union into the Democratic militant fighting union that it is known for

nationally and internationally today

So her death is a real blow to the labor movement to the left labor project to all of us who believe that

Unions can act as this kind of fighting force that can fight not just for themselves to win better wages better benefits better conditions on the job

But can actually fight for the entire working class the CTU under Karen Lewis did that and the CTU after Karen Lewis continues to do that

The American labor movement is much worse off without Karen Lewis around and we at Jack have been wanted to make sure that we

Took the time to properly memorialize or we've published several pieces on our website

memorializing her by folks who knew her in Chicago and elsewhere and will continue to do so in the coming days

And meantime here is my discussion with a number of people in the Chicago labor left who were close to Karen

on her legacy in Chicago and beyond

Hello everyone welcome to another edition of Jacobin talks. My name is Micah Yutrick. I am the deputy editor of Jacobin and I am joined

By Alec press staff writer Jack. Hello. Happy to be here

So thanks for being here Alex. Thanks for everyone who's watching. So we've got a pretty stacked lineup of people who we're going to be talking to here

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