(CNN) As the West Virginia teachers' strike enters its second week, there is a growing sense in progressive circles -- and among organized labor activists -- that what's happening in the Mountain State could mark the beginning of a movement that transcends the current impasse.

To start, there are now reports that teachers in Oklahoma , where Facebook has emerged as an organizing hub, and other states are considering similar action. But more than the potential domino effect, it is the durability of the now eight-day-long "wildcat strike" that has implications beyond West Virginia's borders.

With the Supreme Court, which last week heard arguments in the case of Janus v. AFSCME, possibly on deck to cripple public sector unions around the country in June by banning the collection of mandatory dues, labor groups -- stripped of their traditional bargaining powers -- are being pushed toward new and more aggressive forms of collective action.

In West Virginia, a so-called "right to work" state, the public sector unions are already prohibited from requiring agency fees and hard-pressed to negotiate contracts , a set of rules that left the teachers in this current fight with little lawful recourse when the state repeatedly refused to meet their demands.

The strike, which began on February 22 when some 20,000 teachers hit the picket line, has now forced school closures in all of the state's 55 counties. At stake are two apparently separate but deeply interwoven concerns: first, to secure a meaningful raise for educators whose compensation is among the lowest in the country and, second, though perhaps even more important, to come up with a fix for the Public Employees Insurance Agency, their embattled health coverage program.

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