The expected Supreme Court decision in the Janus vs AFSCME case will deny public service unions the ability to collect representation fees from workers the union is obligated to represent. Once “open shop” goes into effect, the billionaire class and their media sycophants are hoping it will cripple the power of the public unions they despise.(1) But even before the decision, signs of renaissance and insurrection from public employees are coming from unexpected places. Teachers in U.S. states where collective bargaining and strikes are illegal have risen up in mass strikes resulting in significant gains.

Surprisingly, these strikes have happened in so-called “red” states where Donald Trump easily won in the 2016 Presidential election. In the Trump era’s unpredictable political environment , this is not as inexplicable as it might seem. The strikes are all in states where the conservative anti-taxation agenda has resulted in deep cuts to education funding and poor pay and working conditions for teachers. Overcrowded classrooms and a shortage of basic teaching materials and textbooks are widespread. History teachers describe their textbooks still featuring George W. Bush as the incumbent president. In many cases, teachers expend their own funds to buy notebooks and other essential school supplies that their students need.(2)

The most dramatic and successful strike to date was launched by 22,000 teachers and support staff in all 55 counties of West Virginia on February 22. Before the strike, members participated in district-by-district, face-to-face meetings and voted democratically to walk out. Social media played an important role, but as with all effective labor actions, personal contact was the key to cementing a commitment to action.(3)

The West Virginia strike action was particularly strong because many teachers built effective alliances with approximately 9,000 other school employees and with parents and students. In many schools, teachers packed student backpacks with food to take home during the strike, knowing full well that students and their families relied on school lunches for daily nourishment in impoverished communities. In many cases, sympathetic school superintendents and administrators canceled school, effectively shielding teachers from the state’s ban on striking.

The striking teachers and educational support staff flooded the state capital and openly challenged West Virginia’s right-wing Republican Governor Jim Justice. It was a very successful tactic. When an initial brokered settlement by their statewide leadership that fell short of their demands, rank and file strikers openly defied their leaders and voted to continue their job action until their goals were met.

Gov. Justice eventually caved-in to their demands and granted a five percent increase to all state employees. Finally victorious, they returned to work on March 7th.

The West Virginia strikers inspired similar actions in Oklahoma, Colorado, Kentucky, Arizona and North Carolina, all states, except for Colorado, that Trump carried in the 2016 Presidential election. While many strikers undoubtedly voted for Trump, their class allegiances were significantly sharpened as the struggle for quality education, and better pay and benefits intensified.

Strike fever appears to be spreading. Inspired by the teachers, 22,000 University of California service workers engaged in a statewide strike for three days from April 30 to May 2.(4) Presently 228,000 Teamsters are in negotiations for a new contract with giant United Parcel Service. Their contract expires July 31 and a strike vote has already been taken.(5)

The American labor movement is learning lessons that are crucial to labor’s survival in an environment where union rights are increasingly being taken away by a hostile Trump administration and its Republican majority in both houses of Congress.(6)

Ellen David Friedman has been organizing teachers for decades and is working with some of the most innovative teacher unions in the country. In an excellent analysis of the political and economic dynamics of the teacher strikes, she observed, “When there is no effective access to meaningful channels for change, workers resort naturally to the only power no one can steal from them—the power to withhold their labor. This spontaneous chain of wildcat strikes may be the only recourse left for the teachers when the unions and the politicians fail them, but they are also facilitated by the very weakness of the union bureaucratic environment around them.”(7)

This historic strike wave has strategic implications in both the union movement’s approaches to industrial action and labor-backed political action. As the authors have previously observed, when union members engage in mass actions – especially strikes – workers’ class consciousness rises and politically they move to the left.

Notes
(1) The Crimson

(2) How Much Do Teachers Spend On Classroom Supplies? National Public Radio (NPR)

(3) “A Crowdsourced Look at the 2018 West Virginia Teacher Strike,” Charleston Gazette-Mail, Part 1; Part 2

(4) “University of California workers start 3-day strike,” The Mercury
News, May 7, 2018

(5) “Striking Big Brown,” by Joe Allen, Jacobin, May 17, 2018

(6) “The West Virginia Teachers Strike Shows That Winning Big Requires Creating a Crisis,” Jane McAlevey, The Nation, April 9, 2018

(7) “What’s Behind the Teachers’ Strikes, The Labor-Movement Dynamic of Teacher Insurgencies,” Ellen David Friedman, Dollars & Sense Magazine, May/June 2018

Also published in Italy Sinistra Sindicale