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Red State Revolt: The Teachers' Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics
An indispensable window into the changing shape of the American working class and American politics
Thirteen months after Trump allegedly captured the allegiance of “the white working class,” a strike wave—the first in over four decades—rocked the United States. Inspired by the wildcat victory in West Virginia, teachers in Oklahoma, Arizona, and across the country walked off their jobs and shut down their schools to demand better pay for educators, more funding for students, and an end to years of austerity.
Confounding all expectations, these working-class rebellions erupted in regions with Republican electorates, weak unions, and bans on public sector strikes. By mobilizing to take their destinies into their own hands, red state school workers posed a clear alternative to politics as usual. And with similar actions now gaining steam in Los Angeles, Oakland, Denver, and Virginia, there is no sign that this upsurge will be short-lived.
Red State Revolt is a compelling analysis of the emergence and development of this historic strike wave, with an eye to extracting its main strategic lessons for educators, labor organizer, and radicals across the country. A former high school teacher and longtime activist, Eric Blanc embedded himself into the rank-and-file leaderships of the walkouts, where he was given access to internal organizing meetings and secret Facebook groups inaccessible to most journalists. The result is one of the richest portraits of the labor movement to date, a story populated with the voices of school workers who are winning the fight for the soul of public education—and redrawing the political map of the country at large.
Thirteen months after Trump allegedly captured the allegiance of “the white working class,” a strike wave—the first in over four decades—rocked the United States. Inspired by the wildcat victory in West Virginia, teachers in Oklahoma, Arizona, and across the country walked off their jobs and shut down their schools to demand better pay for educators, more funding for students, and an end to years of austerity.
Confounding all expectations, these working-class rebellions erupted in regions with Republican electorates, weak unions, and bans on public sector strikes. By mobilizing to take their destinies into their own hands, red state school workers posed a clear alternative to politics as usual. And with similar actions now gaining steam in Los Angeles, Oakland, Denver, and Virginia, there is no sign that this upsurge will be short-lived.
Red State Revolt is a compelling analysis of the emergence and development of this historic strike wave, with an eye to extracting its main strategic lessons for educators, labor organizer, and radicals across the country. A former high school teacher and longtime activist, Eric Blanc embedded himself into the rank-and-file leaderships of the walkouts, where he was given access to internal organizing meetings and secret Facebook groups inaccessible to most journalists. The result is one of the richest portraits of the labor movement to date, a story populated with the voices of school workers who are winning the fight for the soul of public education—and redrawing the political map of the country at large.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2019
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1274 people want to read
About the author
Eric Blanc
13 books36 followersEric Blanc is a former high school teacher and currently a doctoral student at NYU Sociology. He has appeared on Democracy Now and writes for The Nation and The Guardian. During the Los Angeles, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, Denver, and Oakland public education strikes, Blanc has been Jacobin magazine’s on-the-ground correspondent.
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May 7, 2019What happens when you organize and stand up and stand tall, instead of taking it up the ass over and over and rolling over and compromising with neocon con artists and compliant Democratic Party and labor leadership elitist hacks? Surprise, the answer is: you can win. This guy was on Sam Seder's Majority Report on Youtube today and he really knows his shit. Here we have history in the making, right now. If you're a laborer and tired of being told that you're a leech or a "taker" on society as you work harder, make less money and are rewarded for it by being demonized and called names, this seems to be the book to go to.
August 12, 2020
had to stop reading every 5 or so pages to cry bc working class unity and solidarity makes me emotional
October 22, 2019
A crucially necessary account of class struggle politics that laid the groundwork for this year’s strike uprising and Sander’s resurgent 2020 campaign. Clear, accessible, partisan language that makes it clear which side Blanc is on - you love to see it!
June 8, 2019
Eric Blanc, a former educator and current writer for Jacobin magazine, spent time in WV, OK, and AZ - "red states - during their teacher strikes in the spring of 2018. In this book, he shares his observations and snippets of interviews with many of the strike leaders. He also shares his own insights and opinions as to what factors made these strikes successful, as well as key weaknesses and setbacks.
This book was inspiring and insightful. It gave me hope for the future of education in our country. I also walked away more informed about how these movements got started, and what it might take to see more movements like this.
The book was also somewhat repetitive, at times feeling like a long op-ed was stretched into an entire book. However, that being said, it was still a pretty easy read. Important for educators and other laborers to read, learn from mistakes, and be inspired to take action themselves.
This book was inspiring and insightful. It gave me hope for the future of education in our country. I also walked away more informed about how these movements got started, and what it might take to see more movements like this.
The book was also somewhat repetitive, at times feeling like a long op-ed was stretched into an entire book. However, that being said, it was still a pretty easy read. Important for educators and other laborers to read, learn from mistakes, and be inspired to take action themselves.
November 5, 2021
Red State Revolt examines the historic 2018 teacher strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona from a labor-positive and socialist lens. As a future teacher, I found this information valuable, a necessary reminder of the power of workers fleshed out hand-in-hand with a mini-lesson on labor organization.
"The red state revolt was a historic step forward for working people. But ultimately it was just one early battle in what will certainly be a much-longer war to save our schools and transform the United States into a country where government policy is determined by human needs, not corporate profits." (p. 211)
"The red state revolt was a historic step forward for working people. But ultimately it was just one early battle in what will certainly be a much-longer war to save our schools and transform the United States into a country where government policy is determined by human needs, not corporate profits." (p. 211)
May 30, 2021
Brilliant!!!
Loved how the author so extensively and descriptively reported all the behind-the-scenes strategizing and organizing that made the strikes successful. As someone whose understanding of the Left politics only comes from theory, I was little aware of how much work goes into organizing and unionizing.
Loved how the author so extensively and descriptively reported all the behind-the-scenes strategizing and organizing that made the strikes successful. As someone whose understanding of the Left politics only comes from theory, I was little aware of how much work goes into organizing and unionizing.
June 28, 2020
Read this at the beginning of quarantine and it’s one of the few books that has ever really made me ugly cry! Really great personal narratives, community context, and explanation of labor laws & when to break them
November 6, 2019
Must read for all teachers.
Does an excellent job illustrating how working conditions and rights of the public is a post-partisan issue.
Does an excellent job illustrating how working conditions and rights of the public is a post-partisan issue.
June 7, 2019
“The Koch Brothers are right to be worried.” The last line of this book is a big one - and one that’s incredibly accurate, if Eric Blanc is right about the potential for growing labor movements in education throughout the US. This book is an incredibly thorough look at the unique political and social circumstances that led to the teachers’/education strikes in the Republican-held states of West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona in 2018. At the core of the successful movements was community organizing, a concern for thoughtful demands, and a “militant minority.” Academically, this is a fantastic analysis of the resurgence of labor movements in education, and could also be a great “guidebook” for more movements in the future... depending on how the reader decides to use it.
December 31, 2019
One of the best labor books I've read in a long while. Blanc admirably edifies striking educators across the United States by both praising them for their leadership and offering them respectful critiques in a comradely fashion. Blanc's time spent as a participant-observer on educator strike lines is a lesson in fieldwork with integrity. Educators' voices are heard throughout the book, giving the reader an up-close and emotional experience of this remarkable working class revolt in 2018. The book is a testament to educators' leading role in building working class power in this dark era of proto-fascist politics and neoliberal economics.
August 7, 2019
A behind-the-scenes journalistic view of the Red State teachers' strikes of 2018 that doesn't really have anything unique to say about what happened. I think people would get more out of Micah Uetricht's Strike for America, which is detailed and granularly labor-focused in a way that this book is not.
March 16, 2020
Blanc does a superb job of placing the teacher’s strikes in the context of recent labor history and highlighting the role of militants who in sparking them.
May 27, 2019
Red State Revolt - review
Despite 2018 being yet another year of conservative backlash globally, the teachers strikes in so-called “red states” showed that organising and winning big against even conservative governments can be done. In “Red State Revolt”, Jacobin journalist Eric Blanc, gives us so far the most detailed analysis of how teachers in the US, managed to do just this and bring a country that had year-on-year decreasing strike days and union membership, to some of the biggest strike mobilisations and demonstrations some of these states had ever seen.
In the book, Blanc focuses on West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona. West Virginia was by far the most successful in its organisation and its wins, Arizona very successfully organised too however it received much more severe conservative backlash than did West Virginia. Although Oklahoma did make some wins, it did not much to have the same organisational capacity as the other two states. According to Blanc, the reason for these differences comes down to the political orientation, experience and existence of what he calls a “militant minority” - a minority of politicised trade unionist, who attempt to organise their unions on a democratic class-struggle basis.
The book is broken up into three chapters. The first chapter, examines the political backdrop that the strikes found themselves in. All of these states had seen decades of wage decline, defunding and privatisation of schools and major tax cuts for the rich. However, at the same time, particularly since 2016 the country had seen the rise in popularity of the Bernie Sanders and Democratic Socialists of America. This revitalisation of socialist/social democratic politics and the politicisation of teachers during this time would play an important part in the organisation of these teachers´ strikes. It´s worth noting that in West Virginia during the 2016 elections, Bernie Sanders was in fact more popular than Trump, however, Bernie Sanders did not make it through as the main Democratic candidate.
The second chapter, called “The Power of Strikes” looks at strike mobilisations that took place and the gains that were won. All of the strikes made some kind of wins. But these wins were proportional a) to the strength and strategisation of the strikes, and b) the demands that the strikes were making. One of the most important aspects when it came to the strength and unity of the strikes were that they included and were fought by not just teachers but all staff working in schools - including school bus drivers and canteen workers. Moreover, the strength and confidence that striking received came from the community support they received from parents and students. This fact in some ways blurs the lines between strategy and demands. Making demands around better school funding, improved pay for public employees and tax hikes for the rich were in fact all very strategic, whilst also being important demands in and of themselves. And it was with these demands and the way in which school workers and the community organised together created a more working-class consciousness and confidence in these states and in particular in Arizona and West Virginia. Despite, the conservative backlash attempting to buy-off teachers by giving certain demands and not others, or arguing that teachers were turning their back on their students, these workers managed to beat that narrative and win life-changing wins.
Finally, in the third and longest chapter, “The Militant Minority”, Blanc takes a much more in depth look at the genesis of these strikes and the way in which teachers organised these strike. And in doing so puts to bed some of the myths that took place around the strikes and that were repeated by mainstream media outlets. The two biggest myths were a) that these strikes were organised via facebook and/or they were just spontaneous outbursts, b) these teachers strikes happened because superintendents permitted them to happen. Both of these takes are not only untrue but also serve to teach us the wrong lessons about how we would replicate these kinds of victories. Although facebook groups played a part, in the places with the most success they were used more for communication and discussion but they were never used as decision making tools and in fact most of the work of the strike came from one-to-one conversations, organising meetings, organising strike funds and so on, which didnt happen online but on the ground. When it came to superintendents, in some places they were sympathetic but the reverse is very much the truth that superintendents were forced to be supportive because of the strength of the strikes and in some case superintendents were the ones who were trying to sell the strikes out and/or placate them.
Blanc demonstrates that where the strikes had the most success in West Virginia and Arizona, the “militant minority” were DSA activists and/or otherwise socialist and/or experienced trade unionists. Because of their politics they had the analysis to see what needed to be done and the understanding of the power strikes to pull this off. Oklahoma, whilst making some wins, unfortunately learnt the wrong lessons from the West Virginia. The organisers of the strikes were moderators of two competing facebook groups who self-described themselves and liberal and fiscal conservatives. They attempted at the start to only organise via facebook and only later got involved union organising. The campaign in Oklahoma was unfortunately riddled with so much infighting, misdirection and lack of direction that despite pulling off good mobilisations, was much less successful than it could have been.
I learned a lot from this book. Most importantly, it reaffirmed my growing belief that what we really need more of is a) people organising in their workplaces and bringing demands that are for the benefit of working-class as a whole and b) political education. There are is much more that is packed in this book that have not covered here like how workers took strike action despite it being illegal, the relationship between the unions and teachers strikes, and the extent of school privatisation in the US.
Although this book, is in part intended for organisers and as lessons for how to do something similar, I think it can´t give you the depth you would need for this. If you are planning to get more involved in organising, I seriously recommend “No Shortcuts” by Jane McAlevey (in fact this was the book around which the militant minority involved in the West Virginia teachers strikes, got together and started their organising) and books and articles put out by Labor Notes.
Furthermore, although the author does point out in the book that these strikes were not just about teachers, it is unfortunate that subheading still talks about “teachers strikes”. It would have been good if the author had spent more time on what non-teaching staff were doing and their involvement.
I recommend this book to everyone, whether you want an in-depth look at the strikes that went on, get inspiration for a struggle you are involved in or just a good read.
Despite 2018 being yet another year of conservative backlash globally, the teachers strikes in so-called “red states” showed that organising and winning big against even conservative governments can be done. In “Red State Revolt”, Jacobin journalist Eric Blanc, gives us so far the most detailed analysis of how teachers in the US, managed to do just this and bring a country that had year-on-year decreasing strike days and union membership, to some of the biggest strike mobilisations and demonstrations some of these states had ever seen.
In the book, Blanc focuses on West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona. West Virginia was by far the most successful in its organisation and its wins, Arizona very successfully organised too however it received much more severe conservative backlash than did West Virginia. Although Oklahoma did make some wins, it did not much to have the same organisational capacity as the other two states. According to Blanc, the reason for these differences comes down to the political orientation, experience and existence of what he calls a “militant minority” - a minority of politicised trade unionist, who attempt to organise their unions on a democratic class-struggle basis.
The book is broken up into three chapters. The first chapter, examines the political backdrop that the strikes found themselves in. All of these states had seen decades of wage decline, defunding and privatisation of schools and major tax cuts for the rich. However, at the same time, particularly since 2016 the country had seen the rise in popularity of the Bernie Sanders and Democratic Socialists of America. This revitalisation of socialist/social democratic politics and the politicisation of teachers during this time would play an important part in the organisation of these teachers´ strikes. It´s worth noting that in West Virginia during the 2016 elections, Bernie Sanders was in fact more popular than Trump, however, Bernie Sanders did not make it through as the main Democratic candidate.
The second chapter, called “The Power of Strikes” looks at strike mobilisations that took place and the gains that were won. All of the strikes made some kind of wins. But these wins were proportional a) to the strength and strategisation of the strikes, and b) the demands that the strikes were making. One of the most important aspects when it came to the strength and unity of the strikes were that they included and were fought by not just teachers but all staff working in schools - including school bus drivers and canteen workers. Moreover, the strength and confidence that striking received came from the community support they received from parents and students. This fact in some ways blurs the lines between strategy and demands. Making demands around better school funding, improved pay for public employees and tax hikes for the rich were in fact all very strategic, whilst also being important demands in and of themselves. And it was with these demands and the way in which school workers and the community organised together created a more working-class consciousness and confidence in these states and in particular in Arizona and West Virginia. Despite, the conservative backlash attempting to buy-off teachers by giving certain demands and not others, or arguing that teachers were turning their back on their students, these workers managed to beat that narrative and win life-changing wins.
Finally, in the third and longest chapter, “The Militant Minority”, Blanc takes a much more in depth look at the genesis of these strikes and the way in which teachers organised these strike. And in doing so puts to bed some of the myths that took place around the strikes and that were repeated by mainstream media outlets. The two biggest myths were a) that these strikes were organised via facebook and/or they were just spontaneous outbursts, b) these teachers strikes happened because superintendents permitted them to happen. Both of these takes are not only untrue but also serve to teach us the wrong lessons about how we would replicate these kinds of victories. Although facebook groups played a part, in the places with the most success they were used more for communication and discussion but they were never used as decision making tools and in fact most of the work of the strike came from one-to-one conversations, organising meetings, organising strike funds and so on, which didnt happen online but on the ground. When it came to superintendents, in some places they were sympathetic but the reverse is very much the truth that superintendents were forced to be supportive because of the strength of the strikes and in some case superintendents were the ones who were trying to sell the strikes out and/or placate them.
Blanc demonstrates that where the strikes had the most success in West Virginia and Arizona, the “militant minority” were DSA activists and/or otherwise socialist and/or experienced trade unionists. Because of their politics they had the analysis to see what needed to be done and the understanding of the power strikes to pull this off. Oklahoma, whilst making some wins, unfortunately learnt the wrong lessons from the West Virginia. The organisers of the strikes were moderators of two competing facebook groups who self-described themselves and liberal and fiscal conservatives. They attempted at the start to only organise via facebook and only later got involved union organising. The campaign in Oklahoma was unfortunately riddled with so much infighting, misdirection and lack of direction that despite pulling off good mobilisations, was much less successful than it could have been.
I learned a lot from this book. Most importantly, it reaffirmed my growing belief that what we really need more of is a) people organising in their workplaces and bringing demands that are for the benefit of working-class as a whole and b) political education. There are is much more that is packed in this book that have not covered here like how workers took strike action despite it being illegal, the relationship between the unions and teachers strikes, and the extent of school privatisation in the US.
Although this book, is in part intended for organisers and as lessons for how to do something similar, I think it can´t give you the depth you would need for this. If you are planning to get more involved in organising, I seriously recommend “No Shortcuts” by Jane McAlevey (in fact this was the book around which the militant minority involved in the West Virginia teachers strikes, got together and started their organising) and books and articles put out by Labor Notes.
Furthermore, although the author does point out in the book that these strikes were not just about teachers, it is unfortunate that subheading still talks about “teachers strikes”. It would have been good if the author had spent more time on what non-teaching staff were doing and their involvement.
I recommend this book to everyone, whether you want an in-depth look at the strikes that went on, get inspiration for a struggle you are involved in or just a good read.
August 4, 2021
The Jacobin and Verso partnership published a book based on the Chicago teachers strikes a while back. And then after 2018 they published a book about the broader teachers strikes that struck the nation. This is that book.
I really liked what Eric Blanc does mainly because even though he gets up close to the people who really worked with the strikes he doesn't over invest in them which for me would be very easy to do as a non-journalist. But you still do get a lot of empathy for the people. What makes this strong is his comparison of the strikes in West Virginia and Arizona versus the ones in Oklahoma. It makes it like points of comparison which could be useful as a handbook for future work.
The thing that makes me sad reading this is thinking about all the promise that we had based on Bernie’s run in 2016 and then the teacher strikes in 2018 and then it felt like a letdown as a member of the left that we didn't get more progress especially considering the pandemic. Reading it just felt as if we had something within our grasp that slipped away a moment in time in the ebbs and flows where you hope you could strike wear the iron is hot, but you miss. And it's not missing that's sad.
I really liked what Eric Blanc does mainly because even though he gets up close to the people who really worked with the strikes he doesn't over invest in them which for me would be very easy to do as a non-journalist. But you still do get a lot of empathy for the people. What makes this strong is his comparison of the strikes in West Virginia and Arizona versus the ones in Oklahoma. It makes it like points of comparison which could be useful as a handbook for future work.
The thing that makes me sad reading this is thinking about all the promise that we had based on Bernie’s run in 2016 and then the teacher strikes in 2018 and then it felt like a letdown as a member of the left that we didn't get more progress especially considering the pandemic. Reading it just felt as if we had something within our grasp that slipped away a moment in time in the ebbs and flows where you hope you could strike wear the iron is hot, but you miss. And it's not missing that's sad.
August 5, 2025
I’m teaching this book in my class on the labor history of education this summer, and while I do think it is a useful account, I strongly agree with criticisms from, among others, Brendan Muckian-Bates and Erin Dyke of the primacy Blanc insists on giving the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign in the origins of the three strikes he considers. Muckian-Bates and Dyke pose the trajectory of Black Lives Matter organizing as a counterexplanation, compellingly, I think, but Blanc insists, with mostly circumstantial evidence, that the role of the Bernie campaign in radicalizing millennials plays the central role in this history, and I think this text suffers for it.
May 14, 2020
A hopeful study for a bleak time showing how rank and file public employees defeated intransigent archconservatives in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona.
June 7, 2021
Similar vibe to Uetricht's book on the previous Chicago teachers strikes. Interesting and insightful account to the strikes and how they came to be.
July 4, 2022
Inspiring. Valuable lessons here for organizers.
January 31, 2024
Deeply care about the topic and cause but written in a repetitive way or maybe just too optimistic in retrospect considering how the next few years went. Made me miss Bernie at his prime :(
December 10, 2024
A refreshing positive outlook on class struggle in the US. Affirming to hear an example of how grassroots organizing - particularly through unions and in the workplace - can win more concessions from employers than years of lobbying.
May 15, 2019
Can't recommend Red State Revolt enough. Eric Blanc's insights into the rank-and-file movement that created a significant upsurge in teachers strikes in 2018 are valuable for any radical who wants to create a revitalized labor movement and build power for the working class.
May 27, 2019
Love it. The best lesson those teachers could ever teach their students--modeling how to recognize when you're being taken advantage of by those in power and how to stand up and do something about it. These teachers are an inspiration to all of us in the trenches every day, working hard because we care about kids.
August 9, 2019
Clear and concise, optimistic without papering over the very real shortcomings/imperfections of the strikes, and only 212 pages in total, Eric Blanc's RSR is a welcome crash-course on the simmering working class resentment of educators who had been taught to expect little and receive less from their Republican governments, but also from their local, compromised unions. It explains the ways in which Democrats, who had largely written white working class voters in these regions off as either racist or stupid, were stunned at the impromptu character of the demonstrations, and forced, for the first time in decades, to reconsider whether or not their strategy of triangulation and concession had more to do with their loss of otherwise-sympathetic voters than their supposed moral failings. Here's hoping the red state revolts of the past two years are only the tip of the iceberg.
January 27, 2021
This is a very good "of the moment" report on the Red for Ed teachers strikes of 2017. Blanc wore out a lot of shoe leather covering the actions as they occurred and then interviewing leaders to gain insights on what they learned afterwards. He writes with much more nuance than a lot of leftwing labor writers. As useful as this book is for contemporary activists, I think it will be invaluable for future historians as well.
December 15, 2019
Powerful and quick, and a great reminder of the power of the grassroots.
June 10, 2020
Fascinating subject, predictable writing.
September 30, 2020
Overly detailed and repetitive. This could have been an article.
January 29, 2021
Concise run-down on the teachers' strikes and take-aways for the labor movement from a journalist at Jacobin who spent months covering them. A great accompaniment/sequel to No Shortcuts, by Jane McAlevey, which I picked up a few months ago.
Like McAlevey, Blanc emphasizes that the New Labor approach to organizing has been weak and insufficient to prevent labor's ongoing decline. Just like in No Shortcuts, the existing teachers unions in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona tended to focus their energy & resources on political advocacy and electing Democratic candidates, rather than developing strong worker organization and ties to the community. This reflects New Labor in general, which has forgotten that the strength of unions is the workers in them and their collective power to withhold their labor, and their most powerful weapon will always be the strike.
The key to success, Blanc argues, was for teachers to develop their own mass organizations and to build their own networks, usually through Facebook groups, with affiliates in each school district. Then, teachers needed to ally with and work through the existing unions. The grassroots uprisings needed to use the existing organizational structure and resources of the unions to get things off the ground. However, for success, teachers needed to also keep their own organization and organic leaders, and not totally subordinate themselves to union leaders, because in a lot of cases, union leaders tried to end the strike and preemptively agree to a halfass deal without the consent of the teachers. At that point, the teachers needed to make a break from the union, shift into a wildcat strike, and keep pushing. In West Virginia, the teachers had enough militant leaders and loose organizational structure to do exactly that.
I appreciated Blanc digging in and explaining the conditions that led to success, or which limited success in each state. It's a complicated, sometimes-adversarial relationship between the mass mobilization of workers and the existing structure of the union, and this is a great contribution.
"Illegal mass strikes did more to revive the trade union movement, and to force concessions from employers, then decades of electing and lobbying liberal Democrats" (pg 211).
Like McAlevey, Blanc emphasizes that the New Labor approach to organizing has been weak and insufficient to prevent labor's ongoing decline. Just like in No Shortcuts, the existing teachers unions in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona tended to focus their energy & resources on political advocacy and electing Democratic candidates, rather than developing strong worker organization and ties to the community. This reflects New Labor in general, which has forgotten that the strength of unions is the workers in them and their collective power to withhold their labor, and their most powerful weapon will always be the strike.
The key to success, Blanc argues, was for teachers to develop their own mass organizations and to build their own networks, usually through Facebook groups, with affiliates in each school district. Then, teachers needed to ally with and work through the existing unions. The grassroots uprisings needed to use the existing organizational structure and resources of the unions to get things off the ground. However, for success, teachers needed to also keep their own organization and organic leaders, and not totally subordinate themselves to union leaders, because in a lot of cases, union leaders tried to end the strike and preemptively agree to a halfass deal without the consent of the teachers. At that point, the teachers needed to make a break from the union, shift into a wildcat strike, and keep pushing. In West Virginia, the teachers had enough militant leaders and loose organizational structure to do exactly that.
I appreciated Blanc digging in and explaining the conditions that led to success, or which limited success in each state. It's a complicated, sometimes-adversarial relationship between the mass mobilization of workers and the existing structure of the union, and this is a great contribution.
"Illegal mass strikes did more to revive the trade union movement, and to force concessions from employers, then decades of electing and lobbying liberal Democrats" (pg 211).
August 13, 2023
A book written almost exactly backwards.
Blanc makes the baffling decision to start with an extended discussion of the strike's aftermath and psychological effects, and only then moves on to a chronological and factual description. While the first half of this book might be legible to someone who paid fanatical attention to the strikes (I was sequestered in a small town in Germany for the second half of the wave and missed it), the discussion of strategic outcomes and differences feels incoherent in the absence of the information in the second half.
Blanc first tells us what the events mean, before even telling us what the events are. This is a book badly in need of an editor. Blanc's political and economic analysis is also relatively simplistic and subscribes to a false Red-blue state dichotomy, despite his attempted rejection of this. Class struggle was well alive in Arizona before the teacher's strike (see the role played by UNITE HERE in the recall and eventual defeat of Joe Arpaio). This makes it difficult to situate the teachers strike inside a class context beyond restating basic political and economic history.
This book should be about twice as long as it, and the last chapter should be the first.
Blanc does write compellingly about the transformative power of solidarity.
Blanc makes the baffling decision to start with an extended discussion of the strike's aftermath and psychological effects, and only then moves on to a chronological and factual description. While the first half of this book might be legible to someone who paid fanatical attention to the strikes (I was sequestered in a small town in Germany for the second half of the wave and missed it), the discussion of strategic outcomes and differences feels incoherent in the absence of the information in the second half.
Blanc first tells us what the events mean, before even telling us what the events are. This is a book badly in need of an editor. Blanc's political and economic analysis is also relatively simplistic and subscribes to a false Red-blue state dichotomy, despite his attempted rejection of this. Class struggle was well alive in Arizona before the teacher's strike (see the role played by UNITE HERE in the recall and eventual defeat of Joe Arpaio). This makes it difficult to situate the teachers strike inside a class context beyond restating basic political and economic history.
This book should be about twice as long as it, and the last chapter should be the first.
Blanc does write compellingly about the transformative power of solidarity.
July 2, 2025
Blanc here offers a great overview of an oft forgotten moment in the Trump 1 admin, the teachers strikes in several red states which won serious concessions. Perhaps the result of post trumpian anxiety (read, Trump derangement syndrome) moreso than class consciousness, Blanc attempts to trace the causes and possibility of replication of the activism here. Blanc looks at three case studies - West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona, comparing degrees of unionization, and the role of social media in each strike. The West Virginia strike, which mobilized the largest amount, in no small part due to WV’s large union presence, proves the least insightful towards constructing similar strikes — as West Virginia’s distinctive history makes it hard to observe as a true “control.” As well, WV has a strong history of unionization, which while Oklahoma has, it has largely been erased, and Arizona has none, being the birthplace of Barry Goldwater. Hence, the AZ section proves perhaps the most insightful, since they were able to garner the most in comparison to their setbacks. However, as the book notes, the public sector is far more unionized, and though due to Taft Hartley, public strikes remain illegal, the living memory precedent of their success is much more strong than in the ever dominant service industry of the postindustrial US.
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