Why Oakland’s Striking Teachers Won
Though educators did not achieve all their demands, Oakland’s teachers strike transformed the city, won important gains, and empowered educators to take on the billionaire education privatizers.
Eric Blanc is an assistant professor of labor studies at Rutgers University. He is the author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics and Revolutionary Social Democracy: Working-Class Politics Across the Russian Empire (1882-1917).
Though educators did not achieve all their demands, Oakland’s teachers strike transformed the city, won important gains, and empowered educators to take on the billionaire education privatizers.
Oakland teachers are on strike today to defeat plans by the superrich to take over and dismantle their public schools.
Within hours of going on strike, West Virginia educators defeated a dangerous education privatization bill. They’ve again reminded us of a simple truth: strikes work.
One year after their historic victory, West Virginia educators will be going on strike again tomorrow — this time to stop a pro-privatization, anti-union bill.
Striking Denver teachers reached a tentative contract agreement this morning. Though they did not achieve all of their demands, Denver’s educators have wrested important gains from school privatizers — and shown once again the power of teachers withholding their labor.
A public education strike wave continues to sweep the country. Today, it’s the turn of Denver teachers to fight back against the privatizers.
There are many good reasons to oppose Cory Booker’s bid for the presidency. One of the main ones is his long-standing drive to destroy public education.
Republican legislators are trying to crush the teachers’ insurgency where it began — West Virginia. But the state’s teachers are preparing to strike again to stop them.
The teachers’ strike wave is rolling on: today, Virginia educators are walking out. A rank-and-file teacher explains the movement’s emergence and what’s at stake.
The Los Angeles strike wasn’t just a teachers’ victory. It was also a tale of two competing antiracist visions — one upheld by privatizing billionaires and another pushed by working people.
The Los Angeles teachers’ strike was big, it was united, and now it’s victorious. We interview UTLA chief negotiator Arlene Inouye about how the strike turned the tables on the billionaire privatizers.
The Los Angeles teachers’ strike isn’t all about wages. At its core, the strike is a fight against a hostile takeover of public schools by the superrich.
It’s official: Los Angeles teachers just announced they are going to strike on January 10. They’re challenging not just public education privatizers, but the Democratic Party establishment.
A strategic focus on uniting the working class doesn’t mean marginalizing the struggle against racism and sexism.
To demand an end to Louisiana’s giveaways to ExxonMobil, Baton Rouge school employees this week took an extraordinary step: they voted to go on a political strike.
The teachers strike wave has reached Los Angeles: teachers there recently voted overwhelmingly to strike. They are fighting against school privatization, wage and benefit cuts, and the nationwide project to dismantle public education.
To win their walkouts for better pay and better schools, educators are defying court injunctions and district-organized strikebreaking across Washington state.
The nationwide teachers’ strikes are a reminder that the working class is still the most powerful agent for radical change.
After six days of striking, Arizona educators are returning to work. Jacobin spoke with three strike leaders to assess the settlement.
Arizona has long been ground zero for school privatization. Striking educators now have a chance to turn back the tide.