Eric Blanc, the author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers' Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics discusses how teachers in West Virginia self-organized themselves, successfully overcame the divisions with school service personnel, and won broad community support for a mass political strike that despite a Republican-controlled statehouse and a coal baron governor, beat back charter school legislation, attacks on seniority, a paycheck “protection” bill, and won a pay raise for all public employees. Inspired by this victory, 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.
The experience of these strikes—like the Sanders campaign of 2016—revealed that even in deep-red states, there is a majoritarian basis for independent working-class politics.