“The Foundation of Union Work is Classroom Work”: Union Leadership in Perilous Times

• In Event: Solidarity is a Verb: Karen Lewis and the Long Fight for Public Education

Abstract

This commentary assesses the impact of Karen Lewis’s leadership on teachers’ unions and the labor movement nationally, emphasizing the necessity of organized resistance regardless of which political party holds power. I will draw connections between Lewis’s approach to classroom teaching, building-level union leadership, and her impact as President of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). The CTU’s model of bargaining for the common good and social movement unionism accelerated the #RedForEd strikes in the years that followed. This was particularly notable, because teachers in states without collective bargaining rights, so-called right-to-work states, embraced more militant organizing and linked their concerns as educators with the concerns of students and parents in their communities. Federal, state, and local education policy decisions have dramatically impacted the contexts in which teachers work and organize. In assessing shifts in education policy and teacher unionism, I will draw on my experience as a former classroom teacher, union leader in a large district, and national union organizing work. I will elevate lessons from Lewis’s life, leadership, and organizing that provide models for how teachers unions can fight against the ongoing attacks on public education today. These lessons demonstrate how teachers unions can build powerful, intersectional movements that confront ongoing attacks on public education and organize urgently and strategically against fascism and racial injustice, regardless of which party controls government.

Author

• Karla Hernández-Mats, American Federation of Teachers