SF Public School Educators Are Striking for the First Time in 47 Years — And That's a Good Thing.

The United Educators of San Francisco’s (UESF) leaders, members of the bargaining team, along with many of my rank-and-file colleagues, express variations of “We don’t want to strike! But we will if we have to…” when speaking to students, to families, to anyone with a microphone or even to each other. As a rank-and-file member, I understand why they repeat this mantra, as strikes are stressful and chaotic. But it’s important for some of us educators to say plainly that this strike is not only necessary, it is long overdue. In other words: we’re fully strike ready!

I’m the child of two San Francisco educators. My mother worked in SFUSD as a teacher for over 40 years. In 1968, early in her career, SF teachers had to go on a one-day strike for bargaining rights, and they won big. She was also working in 1979 when, in the wake of Proposition 13’s calamitous defunding of California public education, the school district fired a third of its teachers, and the union responded with a strike that lasted six weeks. The then-mayor Dianne Feinstein was forced to step in, resulting in the teachers winning most of their demands. Despite this legacy of winning, for the last 47 years, UESF leadership has been strike averse. Our schools, students, and staff have paid for it.

As San Francisco’s cost of living skyrocketed to one of the highest in the country, public school worker wages have stagnated. Desirable private schools got richer and more selective, consolidating wealth, power, and influence, while even sought-after public magnets like SOTA and Lowell struggled with staffing and budget cuts. My mother watched new generations of teachers struggle to make ends meet, raise families, and pay rent (buying homes, as she did, became a fantasy). Time and time again, momentum would surge for a big contract fight, but at the last minute, our union leadership and the district would strike a bargain, averting so-called “disaster.”

For the last 47 years, UESF leadership has been strike averse. Our schools, students, and staff have paid for it.

In 2017, one of my first years on the job, UESF held a strike authorization vote, but a bargain was struck the morning the vote was to be held. In 2020, there was a groundswell of momentum for a strike, but COVID provided UESF leadership cover to capitulate, stopping strike organizing dead in its tracks with an extension of our contract.

Once again, in 2023, educators voted 97% to authorize a strike, and the district responded by acceding to many of the demands, a contract which greatly benefited some of SFUSD’s most underpaid workers, the classified staff. As monumental as 2023’s wins were, that contract left a lot to be resolved in the next round of bargaining. Blaming “declining enrollment,” zealous state oversight, and the potential of a “financial cliff,” SFUSD executives have dug in, offering raises that fall short of even the most conservative of cost-of-living adjustment calculations, and asking teachers to choose between supporting health benefits for retired educators or working teachers with children. To their credit, UESF’s bargaining team has rejected this dichotomy altogether. SFUSD brass want us workers divided, but we are more united than ever.

Yes, this fight is about defending and fixing public education in San Francisco, but there are wider implications. While resistance to Trump has geared up, there is frustration with centrist liberals like Lurie and Newsom who have struggled to hide antagonism towards workers. In response, a new wave of worker fightback is rising. San Diego Educators —roughly the same size as UESF — are planning their first strike in over three decades. United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), which is one of the most active labor unions in the past decade, has also authorized a strike. Dublin and West Sacramento educators are also close to a strike. Across the Bay, Oakland’s teachers are on the brink, too. All of this comes at the heels of the United Teachers of Richmond strike this past December. They won a pay increase, fully-funded health benefits, and retention bonuses for Special Ed teachers.

Ultimately, the teachers' fight is a double-sided one: against short-sighted management of public education, but also against the logic of austerity. This logic falsely dictates that workers can never gain without a commensurate cut somewhere else. Money must keep funneling up, out of the workforce and into the pockets of a billionaire class, who increasingly feel that they need not launder their excess accumulation into philanthropy. Now, billionaires buy CBS, hand gold baubles to the President, gut their pet newspapers, and generally thumb their noses at the public.

Ultimately, the teachers' fight is a double-sided one: against short-sighted management of public education, but also against the logic of austerity. This logic falsely dictates that workers can never gain without a commensurate cut somewhere else.

But we, the organized workers, are not fooled. Whether you’re a socialist or something else, if you work in education or elsewhere, the writing is on the wall: it is us versus them. We can either fight to save public education now, or consign ourselves to a future of AI instructors (as SFUSD seems to be threatening to do), autonomous Waymo “schoolbuses” as the only form of transportation, and an economically gutted populace. We strikers see it otherwise — starting today, we’ll be fighting for us all. Our strike is just the start — see you on the picket lines!