Organizing Outside of Organized Labor: The 2018-19 Teacher Strike Wave

• In Event: Representing Worker Interests in the 21st Century

Abstract

2018 saw the rise of a massive wave of teacher walkouts and strikes across a number of traditionally conservative states, including West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Arizona. Notably, much of the energy and organizing for the mass labor action occurred outside of the traditional labor movement through new online and offline groups of teachers and other education professionals. Why did workers choose to organize outside of their unions--and now after the initial strikes and walkouts how are these alternative labor organizations working with (or against) teachers unions? Drawing on original interviews and surveys of teachers in these states, this paper will answer these questions and in the process shed light on possibilities for new forms of labor representation and mobilization in an era when unions face heightened political and economic pressures but also new possibilities for organizational forms and strategies.

Author

• Alexander Warren Hertel-Fernandez, Columbia University