Education, Labor & Law: The Teacher Strikes in Los Angeles and Across the U.S.

Across the country, a wave of teacher strikes has brought renewed energy to education reform after years of budget cuts, high-stakes accountability, and privatization policies.  While these strikes have been covered widely, there is a shortage of legal scholarship that explores the implications of this strike wave for teacher unions in particular, and education equity more broadly.  Using the wildly successful Los Angeles strike as a jumping off point, this series will explore themes such as the history of teacher unionization, relationships between unions and communities of color and how organizers have sought to overcome past division, the legal and policy context, and successful organizing strategies.

This series seeks to amplify the voices of those most directly impacted by the strikes: teachers.  Teachers from Los Angeles, North Carolina, Arizona, and Oklahoma share their experiences striking, including the educational, legal, and policy context of their respective strikes.  These essays are complemented with contributions by legal scholars with expertise in education and labor law, as well as organizers and journalists who participated in the strikes and conducted extensive research.  We hope that this collection of essays will offer thoughtful legal analysis alongside practical ideas for how to build a more powerful labor movement.

 

On November 21, 2019, we hosted a panel discussion with some of the contributors from this Law Meets World series. Click here to view the recording.