Oklahoma Teachers Launch 110 Mile March to Put Pressure on Legislature
Teachers from Apollo elementary school in Oklahoma City, wave signs at passing cars outside the state capitol as protests over school funding continue on Wednesday. (Sue Ogrocki/AP)
Payday Senior Labor Reporter Mike Elk filed a dispatch for the Guardian from Tulsa on the launch of a 110-mile march across the state to put pressure on the state legislature:
Special education teacher Patricia Mott, 66, said she hoped to do the entire march each day, but the battery on her electric wheelchair will only allow her to go 10 miles a day.
“Sorry I get so emotional,” Mott said as she wiped away tears. “I just need to take care of my kids, I need to take care of my teachers.
“I’m 66 years old and everyone says, ‘Why haven’t you retired?’ It’s because I am needed, still needed,” Mott said as she turned on her electric wheelchair and headed off on Route 66 for Oklahoma City.
Mike Elk is an Emmy-nominated labor reporter who covered everything from Lula & the Brazilian labor movement to major league baseball. He spent years covering union organizing in the South for The Guardian and was labeled by the New York Times as an "abrasive gadfly" for exposing within the labor movement.
Raised in a UE union family in Pittsburgh, Elk was illegally for union organizing at Politico in 2015 and used his NLRB settlement to start the crowd-funded Payday Report. He lives in his hometown of Pittsburgh and is fluent in both Pittsburghese and Portuguese, which he learned when attending journalism school at PUC-Rio de Janerio. Email: [email protected]
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