part of the labor movement to among its largest and most powerful organizations.
Teachers in Washington State Win Unionization Through the Strike
Although the Washington Education Association (WEA) had 34,000 members in 1964, “Teachers were not involved and in control of their organization,” as school administrators had disproportionate influence in WEA affairs, occupying positions of power within the union.19 However, a new generation of teachers, influenced by the civil rights and anti-war movements, was demanding change. By the early 1970s, these militant teachers were “vying for control of WEA and its local associations … [seeking] a stronger voice for classroom teachers in decisions vital to education and their own welfare.”20
Although the Washington State legislature, at the prompting of the teacher’s local in Seattle, had passed a public employee bargaining law in 1965, the statute had no mechanism to actually settle disputes. Understanding that the bargaining law had few teeth, school districts routinely ignored it. As a result, teachers became dissatisfied, and started pushing for greater control over their lives, “demanding to be equal partners at the bargaining table.”21 By the early 1970s, with school districts stonewalling, WEA affiliates began to strike. Leading the way were not the big urban locals as one might expect, but rather teachers in rural areas. On May 11, 1972, teachers in the small coastal community of Aberdeen, Washington staged the first strike of K-12 teachers in the history of the state. Although they went back to work after an injunction was issued, a blue ribbon panel was created in the wake of the strike, which granted the teachers many of their demands. Next, up was the Evergreen Education Association, outside of Vancouver, which would go on to win the first teacher collective bargaining agreement through striking in Washington State. In the fall of 1974, teacher strike activity continued with strikes in Federal Way, Tacoma, and Mukilteo.22 In the face of this repeated illegal strike activity, legislators amended the state’s collective bargaining law in 1975 to allow for, and regulate, strikes.23
Because of its militant actions and repeated strike activity, by the late 1970s, the Washington Education Association had established itself as a major force, and teachers in Washington State were now covered by strong collective bargaining agreements. The WEA, which had been dominated by school administrators in the early 1960s, had been transformed into a real union.
A Quarter Century of Strike Activity in Chicago
The experience of the Washington Education Association was replicated in state after state. One of the most militant groups of teachers was the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). Over a twenty-five year period from 1963 to 1987, the CTU repeatedly used the strike or the credible threat of a strike to gain collective bargaining rights, substantial pay increases, and to defend the public school system from harmful budget cuts. In virtually every negotiation during this period, the CTU contract was settled only after a strike, or at the strike deadline. Ultimately, Chicago teachers became among the most highly paid in the country, in the process transforming the nature of teaching. Equally important, through their strike activity, the teachers improved public education in Chicago by reducing class size and preventing cuts to educational services.
For years the CTU, represented by longtime president John Fewkes, would make annual appeals to the Chicago Board of Education for collective bargaining rights, which the board routinely denied. The issues motivating teachers included low pay, safety in the classrooms, no duty free breaks, and lack of input into policy. As in New York, teachers in Chicago were divided between several competing organizations, including the local affiliate of the Illinois Education Association, which opposed collective bargaining and instead pushed school administrators to include teachers on committees and accept their input on educational policy decisions. By 1963, Fewkes was able to use the teachers strike in New York as a bargaining chip during negotiations, telling the Chicago Board of Education, “It is our desire that the board enter into good, fair negotiations without such strife as occurred in New York City.”24 Unlike in previous years, the union had something to back up its appeals for bargaining—the threat of a strike.
With the board of education continuing to refuse the union’s attempts at bargaining, the CTU began preparing for a strike in March 1964. On the eve of the mailing of strike ballots, however, the school board reversed course and agreed to a collective bargaining memorandum.25 One strike vote had accomplished what decades of begging and appeals to reason had failed to do. Unfortunately, the memorandum failed to provide for real collective bargaining or establish exclusive representation for teachers. Outraged, more militant teachers put pressure on Fewkes, denouncing the agreement as a “fake.” The police had to be called when fifty members protested at a CTU meeting.
Ratcheting up the pressure, in each of the next three years, the CTU took strike votes and in each instance settled right at the strike deadline. In 1965, the strike threat won pay raises, and more importantly, an agreement to hold an election to determine which union would be the exclusive representative of Chicago teachers. In 1966, a strike was narrowly averted when the school board agreed to a $20 million settlement, including $500 pay increases and binding arbitration. In 1967, the CTU threatened to strike once again, settling only because of the mediation efforts of Mayor Richard Daley. Still, the union won a $1000 pay increase, ten paid vacation days, and more class room aides for elementary school teachers. A 1967 article in the Chicago Tribune concluded that the “strike gets results,” and, commenting about the rising tide of teacher militancy in the greater Chicago area, added that:
Teachers by the hundreds forsook textbooks for picket signs in the school year now ending in an unprecedented display of militancy to press for salary increases, collective bargaining rights, improved working conditions, and a share in making education policy. The Chicago area has been hit with nine teacher strikes since last November. Walkouts have been threatened in another dozen school districts.26
In 1968, Chicago saw its first teachers strike, although it was not officially sanctioned by the CTU. The core issue was the denial of full time status to a large group of primarily black teachers who were also denied membership in the largely white local. With the expansion of enrollment, schools in Chicago had come to rely on what were called Full-Time Basis Substitute (FTB) teachers. These teachers—who were mostly African-American—worked full time, but lacked the benefits and job protections of regular teachers, and were not permitted full membership in the union. For years, the FTB’s had fought for equality in their jobs and equal rights within the union. After a referendum to give them full membership within the union was rejected, the FTBs struck, without the approval of the union.27 The strike impacted several hundred schools, lasting between two days and two weeks. While the strike did not produce immediate results for the FTBs, it did help build momentum for what happened the following year, when the CTU finally struck. The two-day strike won a $100 a month pay increase for teachers, and provisions improving public education, such as no cutbacks in summer school programs and class size limits. The strike also provided full certification for FTBs after three years on the job.28
Through strikes both real and threatened, the CTU was able to raise teacher salaries 90 percent between 1966 and 1974.29 The union also gained substantial input into educational policy, paid vacation, group insurance, limitations on class size, and more preparation time for teachers. Over the next fifteen years, the CTU would strike eight more times. However, with the waning of the social movements of the 1960s and early 1970s, the bargaining climate became increasingly difficult. As a result, CTU strikes became longer and increasingly bitter, including a fifteen-day strike in 1983 and a month-long strike in 1986. By the mid-1980s, the CTU had come under more conservative leadership, and for the next twenty-five years abandoned the strike, until waging a high profile strike in 2012 against Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to gut public education.
Learning from Defeats
Even during the height of public employee unionism in the 1960s and 1970s, not every public worker strike ended in a resounding victory. No matter how supportive
