Teacher Solidarity Unionism: Rank and File Organizing during the COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Renewing Teacher Power: Organizing for Labor Rights and Social Justice in Education (Table 1)

Abstract

Drawing on on thirty months of mixed methods data in the study of 75 teachers in nine US states collected between March 2020 and September 2022, this paper investigates the repertoires of collective action that K-12 teachers engaged in during the COVID-19 pandemic and examines how labor contexts shaped these organizing approaches. Analysis indicates that teachers in weaker labor contexts were differentially able to influence decision-making and policy depending on the degree of local solidarity that predated the pandemic response. These accounts demonstrate the importance of pre-existing rank-and-file networks of solidarity in building labor power and sustaining teachers in their work during times of crisis.

Authors

• Alisun Thompson, University of Puget Sound

• Riley Collins, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Lora Bartlett, University of California - Santa Cruz