To: Detroit/Seattle
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January 6, 2020
Re: Teachers and the revival of the strike movement
by Pete Brown, Detroit Workers' Voice
In the last two years there’s been an upsurge in the number of workers going on strike in the United States. The number ballooned from 25,000 in 2017 to 500,000 in 2018 and was about that same number in 2019. This is the largest number of people going on strike since 1986. Counting the number of work stoppages, and the days and hours on strike, the last two years have also been the greatest number of strikes since before the Great Recession of 2008-09. Of those striking, over 75% were education workers (teachers, counselors, janitors, etc.) and another 15% worked in health care or social assistance jobs like nursing, childcare workers, etc.
In present conditions, with stagnant wages, low-wage and unorganized workers are quite ready to move around, quitting their jobs at a rapid pace as they seek somewhat higher pay. Meanwhile the organized section of workers, in particular teachers, is willing to participate in job actions to try and recover some of what they’ve lost in years of austerity. The percent of workers in unions has declined overall from 20.1% in 1983 to 10.7% today, but that number is quite different for the private and public sectors. In the private sector, the percent of workers in unions is down to 7%, the lowest since 1932. But the percent of teachers in unions is 70%. Teachers are much more willing to participate in a sickout or strike when they can count on mass support, even though their union leaders often need to be pushed into calling such actions.
The strike movement is not restricted to white-collar “service industry” workers. Auto workers at GM struck in September 2019 and their strike continued for six weeks, the longest GM strike in 50 years. Auto workers at Mack Truck also struck for two weeks. But the vast majority of strikers were teachers. The movement began with teachers in West Virginia, who began the “Red for Ed” movement in February 2018. (“Red” here stands for “Republican”. West Virginia is a state that voted Republican in the presidential election of 2016. The point of this slogan was that despite voting Republican, the people of that state supported public education.) The movement then spread to other “red” states: Oklahoma, Arizona, and North Carolina. It also spread to “blue” states like Washington, California and Illinois, where public education has suffered cutbacks from Democratic administrations just like in the “red” states. There were also teacher sickouts, for example in Kentucky.
These strikes have come up at a time of intense mass anger at President Donald Trump and his Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. DeVos is especially hated in her home state of Michigan where she led the movement to provide state funding to corporate sponsored, unregulated and often underperforming charter schools. But the deterioration of public schools and the increasingly horrible conditions of teachers is a result of neo-liberal market economic “reforms” which have gone on for decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Funding has been shifted from public schools to privately operated charter schools and sometimes even religious schools. Neighborhood schools have been closed, teachers have been blamed for all of society’s ills, merit pay has taken the place of regular salary increases, testing has been overused, and students have been subjected to “no tolerance” discipline.
Anger at Trump and DeVos has helped propel teachers into action, but their immediate target has been both Democratic and Republican legislators and school boards. Following are notes on the most important recent strikes:
The teachers strike movement began in February 2018 when teachers throughout West Virginia staged a nine-day statewide strike. This included pickets and rallies at the state capitol in Charleston. The movement for a strike was begun by teachers agitating for it on Facebook and defying their union leaders who advised them to take it easy. Later the union leaders got on board and helped organize rallies and marches. But after the strike began and the governor promised to meet the teachers’ demands for a raise, union leaders advised teachers to return to their jobs; but the teachers persisted organizing independently on Facebook and insisted on continuing the strike until their pay raise had been enshrined in law. Eventually the governor and legislature agreed to their demands; teachers won raises of about $2,000/year and support staff also received 5% raises.
Teachers in West Virginia held a statewide strike again in February 2019 protesting some legislators’ proposal to allow charter schools for the first time in West Virginia. Backers of the proposal tried to sweeten it by adding increased funding for schools, more money for school nurses, etc., to the bill, but teachers weren’t buying it. By standing firm in a statewide strike for two days, teachers were able to get the bill temporarily killed. But only temporarily. After the school year ended in June and there was no more threat of strikes, Republicans used their supermajority in the legislature to revive the bill and ram it into law in just one day. Polls have shown that 88% of people in West Virginia oppose charter schools, but the reactionary legislators don’t care; they listen only to the Chamber of Commerce, Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos. The struggle in West Virginia is far from over.
Inspired by the example of West Virginia, teachers in Oklahoma launched a statewide strike in April 2018. Striking for nine days won them raises of $6,000/year with smaller raises for school support staff. The agreement ending the strike also included new taxes to pay for teachers’ increased pay. Oklahoma’s schools were in a deplorable condition. In the previous decade state spending per student had fallen 28%. One-fifth of the state’s schools were open only four days a week due to cutbacks, and art and sports had been eliminated from many schools. Previously, following the last statewide strike in 1990, the state had agreed to lower class sizes, to fund kindergarten, and to raise wages; but these agreements were later canceled due to budget cuts. Teachers’ pay had fallen to last in the nation. The 2018 strike brought teachers up to 34th in the nation, a definite improvement, though many problems in the schools remain. Strike leaders had wanted to pay for the wage gains by restoring a capital gains tax and a wealth tax, but the Republican-controlled legislature refused to consider this; instead they insisted on a variety of sales taxes which will impact the working masses. Teachers reluctantly agreed to this.
In Kentucky the issue is not so much salary pay as it is pensions. The state has allowed teachers’ pensions to become woefully underfunded, so the system is now threatened with bankruptcy. To rescue it the Republican legislature passed a law that forces teachers into a new system like a 401K where teachers will never know, until they retire, how much retirement pay to expect. In April 2018 teachers from all over the state descended on the state capitol in Frankfort for two days to protest this new system. Despite their protests the system remained law.
In 2019 legislators proposed a new law to decrease the number of teachers’ union representatives on their state pension board. Enraged, teachers and their supporters descended on the state capitol in Frankfort the last day of February. They sat in on legislative hearings, all of them wearing red T-shirts and chanting. Teachers’ strikes are banned by law, but the teachers organized a sickout using their own grassroots organization, KY 120 United, which includes other school employees. So many teachers called in sick that day that eight school districts were completely shut down including the two largest, Louisville and Lexington.
In the following weeks, as the legislature continued debating this reactionary bill, sickouts continued in Kentucky schools. The Louisville district was shut down five more times in March. Leaders of the teachers’ union tried to stop the sickouts by calling for a delegation of union leaders to attend legislative hearings, but teachers continued the sickouts anyway. Finally the Kentucky Education Commissioner demanded the names of those calling in sick from local school districts, so he could plan some sort of retribution. This shows the kind of legal trouble teachers’ strikes face if they’re not well organized and supported.
Arizona was the next in line. There had never been a statewide teachers’ strike in Arizona, but teachers were growing restive after the examples of West Virginia and Oklahoma. Teachers in Arizona have suffered years of cutbacks. Salary pay is among the nation’s lowest, and has actually decreased, adjusted for inflation, since 1990. Funding for the state’s public schools has fallen by 14% in the past decade. Earlier in the year Republican legislators and the governor proposed a raise for teachers of only 1% per year for 2018 and 2019. After West Virginia and Oklahoma and teachers’ threatened walkout, the governor raised this to a proposed 10% per year for two years. But teachers were still not satisfied, as this was not guaranteed by the legislature, and it contained no raises for support staff. On April 26, 2018 they walked out on strike and stayed out until May 3rd, when the legislature passed a new law giving them the governor’s promised increases plus increased pay for support staff and the hiring of more counselors.
The next school year of 2018-19 began with teacher strikes and threatened strikes all over the state of Washington. Traditionally a Democratic Party “blue” state, Washington had seriously underfunded public schools for many years. In 2012 the state Supreme Court ruled this underfunding unconstitutional and told the state to get its act together. But the legislature stalled. In 2015 teachers began to get restive and launched some rolling strikes, after which the Court found the state in contempt of court and fined it $100,000 per day. Finally in 2018 the legislature provided an additional $2 billion in funding for public schools to be divided up among local school districts and spent as they saw fit. Teachers demanded, first of all, that they should receive some significant raises. When local school boards balked at this, teachers in various districts went on strike. At one point 80,000 students were locked out of schools in late August as strikes delayed the opening of the school year. In some cities teachers defied court injunctions to go back to work, and insisted on staying out. The result was that strikes were quickly settled by school boards that had initially pleaded lack of money. In Evergreen, for instance, teachers were initiatlly offered a piddling raise of 1.9% but after striking settled for 11.5%. Teachers in Tacoma got a raise of 14.5%, and in Seattle, where teachers only threatened to strike, they got 10.3%.
Washington teachers were not able to organize a statewide strike, which would have been more powerful and more equitable, and many issues other than teacher pay did not get addressed, but at least they made a beginning in overcoming decades of underfunded public schools.
California is another “blue” state where Democrats control much of the state government. But there too public education has suffered from years of cutbacks, and California schools have declined. Finally teachers in Los Angeles had had enough, and they struck for six days in January 2019. Tens of thousands of teachers marched in downtown L.A. and picketed the schools. With their action the teachers were able to win caps on class sizes; full-time nurses for every school; a librarian for every middle school and high school; a reduction in standardized tests; and a 6% pay raise. By their action teachers were able to begin to revive a discussion about how to reverse the decline in public education.
Denver’s strike was a demand for respect from teachers who have suffered cuts for years. Teachers in Denver are faced with a rapidly increasing cost of living in a favored place to live. Despite their nice environment, teachers can hardly afford to live on their salaries. Many teachers have to work two or three jobs to get by, while others move away from Denver or give up teaching altogether. After striking for three days in February 2019 teachers won pay raises of 7-11% and an increase in salary steps which allow them gradual, guaranteed raises. This is some improvement over the past, where teachers were granted individual bonuses for questionable reasons. The strike was definitely a victory, but many teachers remain dissatisfied and may be forced to move away or leave teaching.
Illinois is another “blue” state where public education has suffered under Democratic Party control. From 2001 to 2009 the CEO of Chicago Public Schools was Arne Duncan, who became President Obama’s Secretary of Education in 2009. Duncan pressed the use of standardized tests and demanded their use by state and local school districts in order to obtain federal funds in Obama’s “Race To The Top” program, which also included standardized teacher evaluations. These became issues for teachers in many states.
Another major influence on Chicago public schools was Rahm Emmanuel, a Congressman from Chicago who became chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, then chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, and after Obama became president he was named White House Chief of Staff. In 2010 he quit that job and became mayor of Chicago from 2011 to 2019. As mayor he had a lot of influence on the school board and helped implement Arne Duncan’s “reforms.” In 2012 the teachers of Chicago went on strike against changes to their health insurance, against teacher evaluations, and for a reinstatement of seniority pay increases. Teachers returned to work after eight days on strike with most issues unresolved. In 2013 the school board announced the closing of 50 neighborhood schools all at once, and this became another sore spot for teachers and the public at large.
In 2019 Emmanuel’s unpopularity forced him to quit as mayor after two terms. He was succeeded by another Democratic Party politician, Lori Lightfoot, who maintained the same policies. This led to another strike by teachers in October 2019. This time the teachers were somewhat more successful. They won reduced class sizes; hundreds more social workers, nurses and librarians; and a 16% salary increase over five years. Many teachers were dissatisfied that they did not win even steeper reductions in class size, more teacher prep time, and aid for special ed. But at least they were able to carry out a successful strike and begin to repair the damage schools suffered under the administration of Rahm Emmanuel.
Teachers in Oakland struck for seven days in February 2019 and won an increase over what they had been offered. Teachers won an 11% raise over four years plus a 3% signing bonus. The local school board also agreed to hire more counselors, psychologists, and special education teachers, and awarded pay raises and bonuses to school nurses. In addition the board agreed to lobby the legislature for a moratorium on charter schools.
In elections in late 2018 voters in North Carolina finally broke the supermajority which Republican legislators had used to cut the budgets for public education, lift the cap on charter schools, and grant millions of dollars to vouchers for students to attend private and religious schools. By breaking through the Republican lock on the state legislature, citizens of North Carolina could begin to reverse the cuts to public education carried out in past years. On May Day 2019 teachers in North Carolina marched to the state capitol demanding:
1. More librarians, school psychologists, social workers, counselors and nurses (suicides among school teens has doubled in the last ten years);
2. $15/hour minimum wage for all school personnel (janitors, cafeteria workers, etc.);
3. Expansion of Medicaid in the state;
4. Reinstatement of retiree health benefits for teachers – this was abolished by the legislature in 2017;
5. Restoration of tuition compensation for teachers pursuing advanced degrees – this was also eliminated by the legislature recently.
The North Carolina agitation and the issues brought forward in strikes show that teachers are dealing with broad social issues, not just issues of pay for themselves. As part of their strike activity, teachers in most cases organized feeding stations for students who normally received free breakfast or lunch at school. (The students could not receive food from their school cafeteria while the schools were shut during the strike.) The need to get issues resolved by state legislatures shows the importance of political activity for solving teachers’ issues. In many cases of teachers’ agitation, progress is stalled by reactionary control of the state government.
The number of strikes the last two years indicates that the workers’ strike movement is finally beginning to revive, but right now it’s not clear if this movement will continue, or on what basis. Teachers have begun to make up for the losses they suffered during years of austerity, but there is still a long ways to go. Teachers have a high rate of unionization, but their union leaders are not noted for being determined fighters. Teachers have been able to make gains because of their own unity and self-organization and because of public support. They’ve reached out to the public, and the public responded by helping on picket lines, helping feed students, and badgering state legislators. Teachers have been able to defy anti-strike laws because of this unity and support. But they still face draconian penalties and threats and underhanded tricks by state legislators. Teachers have shown admirable initiative in some cases in overcoming the roadblocks placed in their way by their own union leaders. More of that will be needed to overcome the reverses public education has suffered in years of neo-liberal austerity engineered by both Republican and Democratic legislators and administrators. <>
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