New York City’s Teachers Union Doesn’t Remember How to Strike
The United Federation of Teachers, New York City’s teachers union, is a massive local that could wield enormous power through striking. But the union hasn’t struck in nearly half a century — even in the face of a deadly pandemic and unsafe schools reopening. Why does the UFT refuse to use its most powerful tactic?
Members of the teachers union, parents, and students participate in a march through Brooklyn to demand a safer teaching environment for themselves and for students during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)
“The United Federation of Teachers [UFT], after the vote of the chapter, will move to close temporarily any schools where there’s a clear and present life-threatening danger to the students and the staff until such time as safety can be assured.”
So read a resolution passed by the UFT’s Delegate Assembly . . . in 1992. The issue then was guns and gang violence. Last week, in response to the reopening plan being imposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, the UFT, New York City’s teachers union, came closer to a strike than I ever thought I’d see.
Strike talk had been rumbling among the teachers for at least a week, when Matthew Cunningham-Cook at the Intercept broke the news that a true-blue strike vote was on the immediate horizon. They could’ve just dusted off that old 1992 resolution and passed the thing again, word for word. They didn’t make it that far.
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