The 2019 LA teachers' strike is a fantastic example, a literal textbook case about rallying support from the entire shop - including affiliated workers, like bus-drivers - and then broadening that massive support by bringing in related trades (the LA charter school teachers walked out with their public school comrades), and the community.

The LA teachers' community organizing was *incredible*.

5/

They worked with community groups to understand what LA families really needed, and made those families' demands into *union* demands. The LA teachers' demands included:

* in-school social workers;

* parks and green-spaces in or near every LA public school; and

* a total ban on ICE agents shaking down parents at the school gates.

6/

Environmental justice, immigration justice, racial justice - these issues were every bit as important to the LA teachers in 2019 as wages, working conditions and vacation pay. And. They. *WON*.

Not only did the LA teachers win *everything* they struck for, they built an enduring community organization that ran a *massive* get out of the vote effort for the 2020 elections and flipped two seats for Democrats, securing Biden's Congressional majority.

7/

So now the teachers are walking out again, and while their demands include wage increases (the greedinflation crisis wiped out many of the gains won in the 2019 strike - though imagine how much worse things would be without those gains!), the demands also include a slate of bold, no-fucks-given, material measures to fight back agains the Trump administration and its fascism:

latimes.com/california/story/2…

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L.A. teachers union pursues big salary hike and bold ideals in opposition to Trump agenda

The L.A. teachers union unveils a contract proposal for big raises and activism that leaders say are more necessary than ever. But will it make LAUSD a Trump target?

^{Howard Blume (Los Angeles Times)}

This time around, the LA teachers are demanding:

* "targeted investment in the recruitment and retention of BIPOC, multilingual and immigrant educators and service providers" - that's right, the DEI stuff that makes Trump's incipient aneurysm throb visibly in his temple (keep throbbing, li'l guy, I believe in you!).

9/

* "support for, defense and expansion of the school district’s Black Student Achievement Plan and Ethnic Studies" - the same programs that make wrestling faildaughter Linda McMahon get the fantods.

* “strengthened policies to support LGBTQIA+ students, educators and staff” - take *that*, Elon.

* "increased support for immigrant students and families, with and without documentation, including support for newcomers" - up yours, Stephen Miller, you pencilneck Hitler wannabe.

10/

Where'd all these demands come from? *665 meetings* that solicited input from "students, parents and other community members." In other words, these are *our* demands - the demands of Angelenos.

Trump is a scab. Musk is a scab. They *hate* unions. They've put the National Labor Relations Board into a coma, illegally firing a board member so that the board no longer has a quorum and can no longer take most actions.

11/

But the tactics the LA teachers used to organize their victory under the last Trump regime didn't rely on the NLRB - it relied on worker power. That power is only stronger today. The NLRB exists because workers built power when unions were illegal. Killing the NLRB doesn't kill worker power. Worker power comes from workers, not the government:

pluralistic.net/2025/01/29/whi…

12/

Now that Trump has canceled labor laws, all bets are off. Trump is illegally breaking the contracts of federal workers, as a prelude to eliminating unions nationwide. As Hamilton Nolan writes, this is the time to take a stand:

> It is unreasonable to run around demanding a general strike every time a single union gets in a hard fight.

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> It is not unreasonable to demand a general strike when the very existence of unions is under direct attack by a government that cares nothing about us, and does not respect our contracts, and is attempting to throw in the trash the union contracts covering hundreds of thousands of our fellow union members, as a step towards doing the same thing to millions more of our fellow union members.

14/

> This is the bombing of Pearl Harbor, against the labor movement. Will we say, “We are filing a lawsuit against this illegal bombing, and we will keep you all updated as it progresses?” Will we say, “Pearl Harbor is way out in Hawaii. I’m glad those bombs didn’t fall where I live.” These are the terms that the union world needs to be thinking in, right now. This is not an exaggeration.

15/

> If we do not go to war, the husk of American unions that emerges at the end of the Trump administration will be, probably, about half as big as it was when the Trump administration started, and immeasurably weaker. That is not an acceptable outcome if you believe that increasing organized labor’s strength is the key to saving this country, which it is.

hamiltonnolan.com/p/they-are-g…

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They Are Going to Take Everything If We Don't Stop Them

The government is going to destroy unions if we don't fight now.

^{Hamilton Nolan (How Things Work)}

McAlevey - who died in 2024 - agreed with Nolan. She wrote vibrantly about how union organizing, and the solidarity it nurtures, was the key to a revitalized democracy and a nation that truly takes care of its people, rather than lining them up in billionaires' feedlots.

I gotta go. I'm on my way to a Tesla protest. Maybe you could find one near you to join, too:

actionnetwork.org/event_campai…

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Join me at the TeslaTakedown

The #TeslaTakedown movement is growing! Join us for an event in our community—or find one of more than 100 events every week across the country. And if there's not one near you, it's easy to sign up to host your own. Let's fight for our country!

^{actionnetwork.org}

But if I don't see you at this one, I'll see you on the picket line - with the LA teachers, the federal workers, and everyone else who's taking a stand against this scab presidency.

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I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel *Picks and Shovels*.

Catch me in #CHICAGO with PETER SAGAL on WEDNESDAY (Apr 2):

exileinbookville.com/events/44…

And in #BLOOMINGTON on FRIDAY (Apr 4):

morgensternbooks.com/event/202…

More tour dates here:

martinhench.com

eof/