There’s a war going on between people who should be looking out for one another’s best interests, if for no other reason than those interests dovetail exactly with their own. Here’s a true story, and a cautionary tale:

A few years ago, a group of teachers at a Mid-coast school district met to discuss a shared grievance. The issue was typical in many ways: The school was asking teachers to give up afterschool time, without compensation or recognition, to cover things like detention and bus duty that had formerly been the purview of education technicians whose jobs were being cut.

These requirements affected all teachers, whether or not they were already engaged in tutoring, after-school activities, coaching or other events.

During the meeting, several teachers also spoke up about janitorial staff pay, which, in this particular district, was higher than typical for the area.

Rather than lauding their fellow employees’ collective bargaining skills, these teachers were upset about the janitors’ pay in light of their own new responsibilities.

Why would a teacher earning $38,000 per year complain that a janitor earning $32,000 per year is making too much money?

Why weren’t they arguing that some of the ed tech jobs, at about $24,000, should be saved by reducing one or more administrators at $100,000 per year each?

There is a decidedly uncivil war raging among the middle classes, and an even more uncivil war waged by the middle class against the working poor.

We can see it in states where Republican governors have initiated a war on union labor, especially among the civil service, including in Maine. The Republican governors and their legislative leaders are styling the war as “a taxpayer revolt,” pitting those in the middle class who work in the private sector against those in the middle class who work in the public sector.

But all of them, whether they work in the public or private sector, pay taxes to support essential government functions, so to call it a taxpayer revolt is disingenuous. And all middle-class taxpayers use government services, whether schools, roads, parks, libraries, police and fire services, etc.

Even those services that do not touch them directly — such as health care for the poor — help the middle class indirectly, since they keep unpaid emergency room visits at a minimum that eventually increase everyone’s health care premiums. Seniors who complain about paying for school districts would be alarmed if students failed to find high-paying jobs after dropping out of the resulting poorer schools, since their own Social Security and Medicare benefits depends on new, young, affluent workers paying into the system.

Although many Republicans last election decried “class warfare” between the middle and working classes against the rich, the truth is Americans are dealing with infighting among people who should really be supportive of one another.

The reason for this “class on class” warfare is that the upper classes have done a much better job framing the economic debate.

In reality, middle classes would benefit from things like single-payer universal health care, a more progressive income tax structure, more support for public universities, more support for public child care, and better K-12 education. It is the middle class who benefits from strong unionization — even if some have never been members of a union.

The middle class use most services, from yard and garden services to car repair to childcare centers. The very poor either use public services, such as public transit and Head Start, or go without, while the more affluent often hire their own help — gardener, au pair — rather than use a private business.

Somewhere along the road, the reality that the middle class is the engine that keeps the economy moving met the spin.

Next week: The Spin.

GINA HAMILTON, of Bath, is editor of the New Maine Times. She welcomes emails at editor@newmainetimes.org.