Voices of San Diego Labor, Part II: Thoughts from Two Local Organizers on the State of Labor and Teachers’ Unions
Teachers’ unions are in the thick of some of the fiercest ever socio-political and cultural wars being waged by the right against educators, the profession itself, and the continued ability of unions to represent educational workers at all.
In states like Florida, they are struggling against censorship, attempts by Governor DeSantis and his allies in the legislature to shape curriculum and make it less inclusive, and the governing of schools and the guidance educators receive has become, as a result, less democratic and more reactionary in nature.
School boards there and across the country have been the targets of rightwing campaigns against everything from sane efforts to protect students and educators from Covid-19 to history that dares to criticize slavery as an evil at the heart of our country’s history—often in the name of “parents’ rights,” which is a thin veil over efforts to privatize education via vouchers and “choice” and make it more conservative. The list of assaults on public education, an institution that was once seen as a cornerstone of our democracy, is simply too long to outline in the space of one column.
Nonetheless, perhaps because of these attacks, educators have seen a surge in organizing, fightback efforts, and militant, spirited strikes in places as diverse as West Virginia, Arizona, and California, where the United Teachers of Los Angeles had a significant win in a recent strike and the UC system also saw the biggest walk out by educators in higher education that the country had ever seen.
Thus, it was interesting to hear from two local organizers what their thoughts are about the union movement as a whole and the direction that labor needs to take in the future.
My colleague, Larissa Dorman, played a pivotal role in the lecturers’ struggle against the UC system, worked at the statewide level with CFT, and is now a lead organizer for the American Federation of Teachers, Local 1931.
Her view of the union movement is optimistic but deeply nuanced:
Being a unionist means combating the systems that oppress all people, standing in solidarity with the most precarious in our society and acting as an accomplice in the struggle towards liberation. The union movement has the capacity to be at the forefront of this work, however, it requires us to see our role of community building and coalition building in a different light. Often, we are too focused on our own internal struggles that we fail to see the ways that our fight is so much bigger. We also forget that it's possible for our unions to act as communities of care for our membership and our community. My hope is that with the increase in union activism nationwide, we can create a new conversation around how to organize in a new era.
At the national American Federation of Teachers, which has historically been more conservative than many key locals on social justice unionism, some of Dorman’s emphasis on the broader role unions can and should play is on display. In a Labor Day message to membership, AFT President Randi Weingarten observed that:
[Rightwing] antagonism toward unions and worker power is out of step with most Americans. New polling for the AFL-CIO shows historic support for unions across party lines, with especially strong support from young Americans. Navigator Research finds that most Americans view teachers unions favorably, including majorities of both parents and nonparents . . . At a time when so many forces are spreading fear and division, unions literally unite people. In the face of fear, we have hope. In the face of despair, we have dreams. In the face of silence, we tell our stories. In the face of smears, we offer solutions. We bring people together to be the most powerful we can be.
The AFT is the home of the people who make a difference in other people’s lives. We offer real solutions for kids and communities. We address hard issues like learning loss, loneliness and literacy challenges. We take on the extremists who want to defund public services, dismantle our democracy, destroy public education and demonize the vulnerable, and the corporations that are more concerned about healthcare profits than patients. And we encourage our members to vote so we have leaders who share and fight for our values.
We have each other’s backs—whether it’s winning safe healthcare staffing levels, as we just did in Oregon, or defending educators’ obligation to teach honest history, as we are doing in New Hampshire. We’re there to help with our free trauma counseling benefit for members, and with the 9 million free books and other resources we have distributed to spark the love of reading. And we have helped members save millions of dollars in student debt, freeing them to buy a home, start a family or buy a car. This is what unions do: We care, we fight and we show up.
Cheryl Coney, an Organizational Development Specialist for our sister union’s statewide body, the California Teachers Association, underlined that the real power of any union comes from the bottom-up:
To quote Alice Walker “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” We ALL have POWER, and collectively that power is strengthened through our unions. The union movement brings us together as a family. As a movement it means that we share in struggle and win or lose we get back up. It means we have a responsibility to each other to demand change in our workplaces, in elected officials, in laws and legislation that benefit our communities, families and working people because a rising tide lifts all boats.
Coney also observes that:
It is an exciting time in labor! We have a pro-labor board and the first pro-labor president in my lifetime, but we still have a really steep hill. Big corporations such as Starbucks, Amazon and the list goes on continue to defy workers will and the law. Starbuck workers have organized more than 300 stores and have yet to win a first contract.
Before the recent changes in the NLRB were made, Coney argued that reform was necessary to provide a more balanced playing field for labor:
We need to think about labor law reform and organizing to make the law meet the moment we are in. When the NLRA was conceived they had not anticipated powerful multibillion corporations unionbusting to the point not even the NLRB can keep up with all the charges. We need to strengthen the NLRA and expedite the process for workers to unionize and win strong first contracts.
So at present, teachers’ unions are both frequently singled out for demonization by the right, allied forces in corporate America, and the corporate-funded world of think tanks, and, at the same time, are seeing a surge in activism, strikes, and a renewed commitment to social justice unionism that brings in community to play a role in helping to ensure that democratic processes rule public education, rather than the whims of the powerful.
So, as the old saying goes, “There is power in a union,” and in building bridges to the broader community we serve.
