Teachers

Tens Of Thousands Of Teachers In Mexico Are On Strike

May 27, 2025 Samuel Karlin, Left Voice. Resist! Education, Mexico, Strikes, Teachers, Worker Rights

For over a week, thousands of teachers across Mexico have been on strike, with the CNTE teachers union putting forward a set of longstanding demands. At the center is the demand to repeal the 2007 ISSSTE law which privatized the pensions of public sector workers including teachers. It was passed by Mexico’s right-wing governments during the neoliberal offensive, but it was part of many anti-worker policies that have continued through the administrations of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and now his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum. There are also demands for a 100 percent pay raise, a defense of public education, and support for the universities that train teachers.

California Educators Sync Up Negotiations For More Leverage

May 16, 2025 Danielle Smith, Labor Notes. Strategize! California, Solidarity, Teachers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Public school educators in 32 union locals across California are joining forces to maximize their power in a campaign called “We Can’t Wait.” It covers 77,000 educators—about a quarter of the California Teachers Association’s total membership—serving a million students. The campaign started with 11 locals that worked to align their contract expiration dates for the end of June: Anaheim, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Natomas, Oakland, Richmond, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Twin Rivers. And it quickly spread from there. Locals have organized educators to sign onto the campaign’s platform, rally before school and walk in all together, and join informational pickets. The goal is to have educators strike-ready in the fall.

US Cities Need More Diverse Teachers; Philadelphia Has An Answer

May 7, 2025 Michelle Palmer and Sharif El-Mekki, Next City. Create! Diversity, Education, Philadelphia, Public schools, Schools, Teachers, workforce development

Public education is at a crossroads. Federal funds for public education have been threatened over the Trump administration’s war on DEI. Mental health funds for schools have been cut. The federal government’s move to slash AmeriCorps programs is already hitting classrooms in low-income ZIP codes hard. And all the while, teacher shortages continue to rise, and stark disparities in educational opportunities persist. The future of our students depends on how we invest in and support our educators, especially teachers of color, who face systemic barriers to recruitment and retention despite their vital role in student success.

Chicago Teachers Approve Contract With Remarkable Gains

April 22, 2025 Jackson Potter, Labor Notes. Organize! Chicago Teachers Union, Education, Illinois, Teachers, Unions, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

This month, 85 percent of the Chicago Teachers Union’s 27,000 active members voted on a tentative agreement covering 500 public schools across the city. A record 97 percent voted yes. The contract will run from 2024 to 2028, expiring at the same time as the UAW’s contracts with the Big Three. The negotiation drew the greatest level of member participation and support in the CTU’s history and was achieved without a strike or a strike vote. The new contract addresses both bread and butter concerns and common-good demands. Said CTU president Stacy Davis Gates, a member of the union’s Caucus of Rank and File Educators: “It was the whole buffet.”

Los Angeles Teachers’ Union Defends Students Anti-Migrant Crackdown

April 17, 2025 Derek Seidman, Truthout. Organize! Immigrant Rights, Los Angeles, Public schools, Teachers, Trump Administration

On April 7, federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) attempted to enter two elementary schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). According to LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, the agents were trying to contact five students who they alleged entered the U.S. without documentation, and they lied to school officials by claiming that the students’ families gave them permission to contact the students. (“Any assertions that officers lied are false,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Truthout in a statement.) It was the first attempt by federal agents to enter a Los Angeles public school during Donald Trump’s intensifying assault on immigrants.

A Teacher’s Approach On How To Fight Back Against ICE

January 27, 2025 Emma Lee, Left Voice. Organize! Donald Trump, Education, ICE, ICE Raids, Immigration, Resistance, Schools, Teachers

The Trump administration’s racist, anti-immigrant offensive is targeting sanctuary cities and the few remaining spaces where undocumented immigrants can feel safe — even where they go to learn and receive healthcare. As a teacher in New York City, this is a direct attack on my students, their families, and my coworkers. A new directive from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has authorized Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to raid schools, hospitals, and religious institutions like churches and mosques — locations previously designated as “sensitive areas” under a 2011 policy.

What Can Education Can Look Like Without High Stakes Testing?

December 22, 2024 Doug Selwyn, Greenfield Recorder Create! Education, Public schools, Teachers, Testing

Ballot Question 2 passed with more than 59% of the vote, ending the MCAS as a graduation requirement in Massachusetts. Students will still take the MCAS, beginning in grade 3 up through high school, and they will still be required to pass their high school classes that are aligned with the state standards, so public education will not devolve into chaos as the opponents warned in their scare ads. There will still be a focus on serving all children in all of our classrooms, children will still be assessed through multiple measures, and there is hope that freedom from the one-size-fits-all straight jacket that is a high-stakes testing regime will allow teachers to more fully respond to the diverse learners in their classrooms.

Teachers Union Staff Faced An Unexpected Labor Adversary

November 20, 2024 Mel Buer, In These Times. Resist! Lockout, NEA, Strikes, Teachers, Unions, Worker Rights

In July, the National Education Association Staff Organization (NEASO) was locked out of their jobs without pay by NEA management after an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike over compensation and working conditions. The NEA is the largest union in the country, representing over 3 million educators in the United States with a union staff of 350. The lockout lasted for six weeks, ending eventually in a contract agreement between NEASO and NEA management. In this episode, two NEASO members talk about the impacts of the lockout on NEASO staff and the larger consequences for the teachers’ unions the NEA represents across the country.

Chicago Teachers Are Fighting For A Historic Contract

October 26, 2024 Kari Lydersen, In These Times. Strategize! Chicago, Education, Illinois, Teachers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In 2012, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), along with thousands of supporters, took to the streets in a historic battle with then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel over his corporate education reform and austerity plans for the city’s public school system. That strike helped define the increasingly popular concept of “bargaining for the common good,” an approach “where unions make demands that would benefit not just members but the larger communities,” as CTU Vice President Jackson Potter explained two years ago on the tenth anniversary of the walk out. Today, the union is in the midst of another struggle over the future of the country’s third-largest public education system.

Los Angeles Teachers’ Road To Durable Power, Part 1: 2014–2016

September 3, 2024 Alex Caputo-Pearl, Portside. Strategize! Los Angeles, Teachers, Unions, Victory

From the 1990s to the mid-2010s, the dominant forces within the Democratic Party helped create, shape, and drive bipartisan neoliberalism in public education. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, a variety of billionaires, and others promoted a model based on austerity, market-based carrots and sticks, attacks on teachers’ unions, and unregulated growth of charter schools that undermined traditional public schools. These policies reinforced historic racial and class-based inequities in schools and demonized educators themselves. Fast forward to 2019, when House Democrats proposed cuts to federal funding for charter schools, and the Party began constructing a 2020 platform that would, for the first time, call for guardrails, accountability, and transparency for charters.

Insurgent Slate Wins UFT Retiree Chapter Election

June 20, 2024 Crystal Lewis, Portside. Organize! Education, Health Care, Medicare, Retirees, Teachers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In a significant setback to the union’s leadership, former educators with the Retiree Advocate caucus of the United Federation of Teachers have ousted the incumbent Unity slate. In balloting for leadership of the union’s Retired Teachers chapter, the Retiree Advocate slate received 17,226 votes, or 63 percent of the total, while Unity, which is aligned with UFT President Michael Mulgrew, got 10,114 votes, according to unofficial results. Members of the Retiree Advocate had campaigned in opposition to the city’s efforts to switch retired city workers to a Medicare Advantage plan from their traditional Medicare. The plan is backed by the Municipal Labor Committee, of which Mulgrew is the executive vice-chair.

27,000 Virginia Education Workers Win Union Recognition

June 13, 2024 Tn Long, Portside. Organize! Education, Teachers, Unions, Victory, Virginia, Worker Rights and Jobs

Around 14,000 teachers and 13,000 support staff will now be represented by an alliance of the Fairfax County locals of the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). This win increases union density in Virginia by at least 15%, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The election victories were for the two bargaining units within the FEU: the Licensed Instructional Unit, covering all workers requiring a license, such as teachers, counselors, social workers, psychologists, librarians, and speech language pathologists; and the Operational Unit for workers such as various kinds of assistants, cafeteria workers, custodians, transportation workers, and front office staff.

Mayor Adams Keeps Pushing Medicare Advantage Despite Latest Court Defeat

May 24, 2024 Joe Maniscalco, Work Bites. Educate! Eric Adams, Legal System, Medicare, New York City (NYC), Retirees, Teachers

The City of New York’s decision to keep trying to push 250,000 municipal retirees into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance plan after yet another crushing court defeat on Tuesday has convinced many in the fight that Mayor Eric Adams and his privatization allies must be crazy. “Yesterday was a great day. Retirees won our case again,” retired public school teacher and Cross-Union Retirees Organizing Committee [CROC] member Sarah Shapiro told Work-Bites. “After spending two months deliberating, the court came down with a ruling in our favor. Yet, the city still vows to appeal again. Will the mayor and our union misleaders in the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] ever learn? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome—these guys are insane! We vow to keep fighting!”

How Portland Teachers Led The Longest K–12 Strike In Decades

May 4, 2024 Melissa Blount and Matt Reed, Rethinking Schools. Strategize! Oregon, Portland, Schools, Strike, Teachers, Unions

We’ll never forget the day when we knew that we would win. It was 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 21, more than three weeks into the first-ever Portland, Oregon, teachers strike. We were rally marshals, tasked with walking ahead of the march to troubleshoot potential issues. Accompanied by the dull hum of a nearby freeway and the caws of seagulls above the Willamette River, we stood on the sidewalk waiting — hoping that a parade of educators would soon join us. They had every reason not to. As frustration mounted with district leaders and their refusal to address our demands for safe, equitable, and sustainable schools, so did skepticism of our union’s strategy.

Massachusetts Illegal Teacher Strike Wave Rolls On

January 12, 2024 Barbara Madeloni, Labor Notes. Resist! Education, Massachusetts, Strikes, Teachers, Worker Rights and Jobs

A wildly successful, illegal three-day strike by the Andover Education Association in November has reverberated statewide for educators in Massachusetts. The lowest-paid instructional assistants got a 60 percent wage jump immediately. Classroom aides on the higher end of the scale got a 37 percent increase. Members won paid family medical leave, an extra personal day, fewer staff meetings, and the extension of lunch and recess times for elementary students. Andover is 20 miles north of Boston, and the strike involved 10 schools. For 10 months and 27 bargaining sessions, the Andover School Committee had insisted that none of these demands was possible.

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