Teachers

Elizabeth Warren joins Chicago teachers on the picket line as negotiations stall

The Chicago teachers strike seemed to move further from resolution late Monday and teachers at the Passages charter school also went on strike, while the striking teachers got support from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who joined them on the picket line on Tuesday. Monday night, Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey sent out a statement saying that negotiations had stalled, …

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Bernie Sanders to Chicago Teachers: Worker Militancy Is Key to Fighting the Corporate Elite

When Chicago teachers led a historic strike in 2012, they boasted the critical backing of the public—but high-profile political allies were hard to come by. With then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel as the teachers’ nemesis, national Democrats stayed far away from the fight, and even a number of so-called “progressive” city council members opposed the walkout, including the now-disgraced former …

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California bill would increase local control over charter schools, this week in the war on workers

The financial drain and lack of local control of charter schools were a major issue in this year’s teachers strikes in California, and now the state legislature has passed a bill that might help. AB 1505 gives local school boards the ability to block new charter schools under some circumstances. The bill, which still has to be …

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New Haven teachers strike drags on for a 14th day this week in the war on workers

Teachers in California’s New Haven Unified School District have been on strike for 14 days as of Friday. They were considering the school district’s “last, best, and final offer,” which falls short of the pay increases teachers are calling for. The school district entered negotiations offering zero raise, meaning teachers would be falling behind as the cost …

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West Virginia Senate passes sweeping education bill to ban teacher strikes

The bill would allow schools to fire workers for striking and withhold pay on strike days. The West Virginia State Senate on Monday passed a sweeping education overhaul bill that would deem teacher strikes unlawful. The chamber voted 18-15 to advance the measure — after Senate Republicans inserted an amendment during a special session Sunday that would …

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The Teacher Strikes Could Set Off a Private Sector Strike Wave—If We Dare

In the spring of 2018, teachers across West Virginia improbably shut down schools statewide, creating a political crisis that forced Republican Gov. Jim Justice and the GOP-led legislature to back down. Drawing inspiration from the West Virginia strikers, teachers in the red states of Arizona and Oklahoma soon followed suit by carrying out statewide strikes …

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Teachers hit with historic wage penalty in 2018

The wage penalty teachers face in comparison to other college graduates hit a record high in 2018, the Economic Policy Institute reports, with teacher pay falling short by 21.4%. That penalty has grown from 5.3% in 1993 and 12% in 2004, but maybe the most striking thing is that, adjusted for inflation, teachers’ average weekly pay actually dropped by …

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West Virginia teachers strike (yes, again) to protest attack on public education

This is not a blast from the recent past: West Virginia teachers are on strike again, just a year after they kicked off a wave of teacher uprisings that is still reverberating around the nation. The teachers won a badly needed pay raise last year, but now they’re protesting as their state legislature considers a …

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Denver teachers go on strike for the first time in 25 years

Thousands of teachers from Denver Public Schools gathered at the state Capitol Monday to kick off their first strike in 25 years, demanding pay increases and a long-term solution to the state’s ongoing problem of underfunding schools. The strike, which is led by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA), will affect more than 200 schools …

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Thousands of Virginia teachers march to state capitol demanding more funding, better salaries

Thousands of Virginia teachers left their classrooms and rallied in Richmond on Monday to demand more education funding and higher salaries. Teachers gathered in front of the state capitol building, just as their fellow educators did during strikes and rallies last year in West Virginia, Kentucky, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, and North Carolina. Virginia Educators United …

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Madeline Messa

Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.