The Future of Labor and Education: Social Movement Teacher Unionism and Black Lives Matter

• In Event: Roundtable Session 44
  In Roundtable Session: Identity Work, Teacher Work: Reconstructing the Real Work of Teaching

Abstract

As the single biggest sector of unionized workers in the U.S. today, teachers unions are at the center of the unprecedented neoliberal attacks on labor. In order to survive, many argue unions will have to better engage the community by fighting for issues important to union and non-union workers. Using the framework of “the teachers trifecta: democracy, social justice, and mobilization” (Weiner, 2014) within social movement unionism, this paper examines the challenges social movement teacher unions confront in responding to the Black Lives Matter movement in order to strengthen the union and its ties to the community.

Authors

• Chloe Asselin, Graduate Center at the City University of New York

• Lois Weiner, New Jersey City University