This spring, teach­ers mobi­lized on an unprece­dent­ed scale in West Vir­ginia, Okla­homa, Ken­tucky, Ari­zona, North Car­oli­na, and Col­orado. They protest­ed, walked out, and even held statewide strikes — in states with lim­it­ed to no col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights, where school unions have tra­di­tion­al­ly focused on state politics.

The spring­time actions, led by rank and fil­ers, inspired edu­ca­tors and union­ists across the coun­try. It looks like the cusp of a labor upsurge that could spread beyond schools.

The mobi­liz­ers met with vary­ing degrees of sup­port or resis­tance from their own state union lead­ers. The mil­i­tan­cy made lead­ers anx­ious, but many were also savvy enough to see that the upris­ings were effec­tive — and that they’d bet­ter not get in the way.

Teach­ers saw just how pow­er­ful they can be when they act col­lec­tive­ly. But now with midterm elec­tions com­ing up, the impulse to turn toward elec­toral pol­i­tics — and a strong push from statewide edu­ca­tion unions to elect new faces into the state­hous­es — presents a challenge.

Will mem­bers go back to think­ing that pow­er resides main­ly in elec­toral pol­i­tics? Or will their new­born rank-and-file move­ment be able to use bal­lot mea­sures and elec­tions to extend their net­works at the grassroots?

Here’s a state-by-state run­down of where the cam­paigns stand and what it might mean for ongo­ing organizing:

West Vir­ginia Digs In

While West Vir­ginia teach­ers were furi­ous at Gov­er­nor Jim Justice’s ini­tial offer of a 1 per­cent raise, their nine-day strike was prompt­ed in large part by cost increas­es in their state health plan, the Pub­lic Employ­ees Insur­ance Agency (PEIA).

Now the teach­ers are await­ing rec­om­men­da­tions from the PEIA Task Force, estab­lished in the March agree­ment that end­ed the strike. With GOP heav­ies like Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Mitch Carmichael — teacher ene­my num­ber one — on the Task Force, many expect the rec­om­men­da­tions to fall far short of what’s needed.

But teach­ers are get­ting ready, focus­ing on form­ing ​“real­ly sol­id friend­ships and con­nec­tions across the state,” said Jay O’Neal, a Charleston teacher who start­ed the Face­book page that played a crit­i­cal role in the strike. ​“We know we have to be a real­ly bot­tom-up orga­ni­za­tion across unions, across each coun­ty, and across the state to with­stand this.”

The teach­ers’ demands are the same as ever, he said: ​“a cor­po­rate tax, increase of the tax on extract­ing nat­ur­al gas — this is the num­ber one solu­tion the task force heard from the people.”

Ari­zona in Vests

Arizona’s week-long strike end­ed in May when state leg­is­la­tors added $400 mil­lion to the edu­ca­tion bud­get, includ­ing a 20 per­cent raise for teachers.

“When we end­ed the walk­out we said, ​‘The fight’s not over,’” said Rebec­ca Garel­li, a leader in the grass­roots net­work Ari­zona Edu­ca­tors United.

The bud­get increase fell short of the demand, pro­mot­ed joint­ly by AEU and the statewide teach­ers union, to restore fund­ing to 2008 lev­els. So both groups worked all sum­mer gath­er­ing sig­na­tures for a bal­lot ini­tia­tive to fill the $700 mil­lion fund­ing gap by tax­ing the state’s rich­est residents.

Though it start­ed as a Face­book group, AEU made the strike pos­si­ble by devel­op­ing a struc­ture of con­tacts with­in schools to share infor­ma­tion across the state. This same net­work allowed AEU to gath­er 150,000 sig­na­tures — all with vol­un­teers. The statewide union got the remain­ing 120,000 signatures.

The mea­sure is on the Novem­ber bal­lot and teach­ers, in sup­port of the ini­tia­tive, are con­tin­u­ing to wear ​“red for ed” on Wednes­days — and tak­ing it up a notch on Fri­days by wear­ing vests, for #inVESTinEd.

Okla­homa Pivot

Teach­ers who struck statewide in Okla­homa fell short of their demands for rais­es of $10,000 for teach­ers and $5,000 for sup­port staff, plus $200 mil­lion in addi­tion­al fund­ing for classrooms.

But they did win a big raise, offered up in an eleventh-hour bid to stop them from strik­ing. The rais­es are kick­ing in as the school year starts. Teach­ers will get a boost of at least $5,000 per year, and school employ­ees will get about $2,500.

After this par­tial vic­to­ry, the statewide Okla­homa Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion piv­ot­ed towards pol­i­tics. ​“The pri­ma­ry was excit­ing,” said Lori Bur­ris, pres­i­dent of the local union for the Mid-Del School Dis­trict, which includes part of Okla­homa City. ​“A lot of leg­is­la­tors were pushed out.”

Six Repub­li­can law­mak­ers lost their pri­maries after vot­ing to block the increase in teacher pay. Mean­while, more than half of the 100 teach­ers who decid­ed to run for state leg­is­la­ture post-strike made it through their pri­maries, most­ly as Democ­rats. That means teach­ers are vying for one-third of the total seats in the state legislature.

From now through Novem­ber, Bur­ris said, elec­tions are the focus. ​ “ After that we assess what our leg­is­la­ture looks like and fig­ure out how we attack next.”

Ken­tucky on Defense

In Ken­tucky, teach­ers and school employ­ees joined the spring upris­ing to defend their state-man­aged pen­sion. They ral­lied at schools and at the capi­tol, and held scat­tered walkouts.

In the end, the state leg­is­la­ture passed a weak­er ver­sion of the pen­sion restruc­tur­ing bill. It has since been thrown out in court, though the gov­er­nor is appeal­ing that deci­sion. Through their mobi­liza­tions, teach­ers were able to win $85 mil­lion more for edu­ca­tion funding.

Mean­while, the governor’s edu­ca­tion board announced that the state would try to take over the schools of its largest dis­trict, Jef­fer­son Coun­ty, which includes Louisville. Nom­i­nal­ly on the grounds of poor stu­dent per­for­mance and safe­ty con­cerns, the takeover would strip the elect­ed school board of its author­i­ty and hand the reins to Kentucky’s chief school offi­cer — a step that has been used in cities such as New Orleans and Detroit to open the door to char­ters and privatization.

Fresh from fight­ing pen­sion cuts, the union is work­ing with the school dis­trict to oppose the state takeover, which teach­ers say would under­mine the bus­ing sys­tem that is part of an ongo­ing effort to deseg­re­gate Jef­fer­son Coun­ty schools. Last night, the dis­trict reached a com­pro­mise with the state that will main­tain local control.

“We knew they were tar­get­ing Black and brown com­mu­ni­ties,” said Jef­fer­son Coun­ty teacher Tia Edi­son. She said the state’s even­tu­al goal is to pri­va­tize: ​“The sec­ond phase would be bring­ing in char­ter schools.”

Col­orado, North Carolina

The excite­ment of the upris­ings sent rip­ples across the coun­try. ​“Mem­bers start­ed see­ing West Vir­ginia, Okla­homa, and Ken­tucky tak­ing action, and said, ​‘Wait, things are just as bad for us,’” said Amie Baca, pres­i­dent of the Col­orado Edu­ca­tors Asso­ci­a­tion. ​“We start­ed to hear from the rank and file that we need­ed to do something.”

But each state had its own polit­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions. In Col­orado, the chal­lenge was a Tax­pay­er Bill of Rights that restricts any tax increas­es to those approved by vot­ers. In North Car­oli­na, it was a vin­dic­tive GOP super­ma­jor­i­ty unlike­ly to respond to any demands.

So walk­outs in those two states were less about winnable demands and more about teach­ers tak­ing action togeth­er to expose how under­fund­ed pub­lic schools are. Still, the expe­ri­ence of act­ing col­lec­tive­ly has ignit­ed ongo­ing work.

“We sparked people’s imag­i­na­tion that we can do things like this and be suc­cess­ful and not get fired for it,” said Todd War­ren, the teacher union pres­i­dent in Guil­ford Coun­ty, North Car­oli­na. Teach­ers in his dis­trict were among the 30,000 who flood­ed the state cap­i­tal in a May 16 walkout.

His union will be focused on the Novem­ber elec­tion, in which teach­ers hope to dis­rupt the GOP super­ma­jor­i­ty. But War­ren believes teach­ers need to stop focus­ing sim­ply on elec­tions and learn how to orga­nize mem­bers in each school for power.

Because of the walk­outs, he said, mem­bers have a new appre­ci­a­tion for the neces­si­ty of nuts-and-bolts orga­niz­ing, includ­ing main­tain­ing lists of co-work­ers, map­ping the work­place, and set­ting up com­mu­ni­ca­tion systems.

That means ​“mov­ing from activists to orga­niz­ers,” he said, ​“the dif­fer­ence between those who show up for a one-day event and those who want to do the nit­ty grit­ty work of build­ing power.”

In Col­orado, the walk­outs spurred a bal­lot ini­tia­tive to increase tax­es on the wealthy and use those funds to sup­port pub­lic edu­ca­tion. The mea­sure would deliv­er $1.6 bil­lion for pub­lic schools. In July the Great Schools, Thriv­ing Com­mu­ni­ties coali­tion, which includes the union, deliv­ered more than dou­ble the required num­ber of sig­na­tures to put the ques­tion on the ballot.

Tak­ing Stock

As edu­ca­tors across the coun­try step back into schools this fall, the com­bat­ive spir­it that first took root in West Vir­ginia is still spreading.

In Wash­ing­ton state, teach­ers unions in at least 13 dis­tricts have vot­ed to autho­rize strikes to kick off the school year. A cou­ple have since set­tled, but teach­ers in Longview, Ever­green, and Washou­gal are hit­ting the pick­et lines this week, with more dis­tricts like­ly to fol­low. Teach­ers in Seat­tle recent­ly vot­ed to autho­rize a strike.

In Puer­to Rico, teach­ers struck on the third day of school, August 15, in an ongo­ing bat­tle against school closures.

And in the nation’s sec­ond-largest school dis­trict, mem­bers of Unit­ed Teach­ers Los Ange­les are vot­ing as we go to press on whether to autho­rize a strike.

With bal­lot ques­tions and elec­toral pol­i­tics the focus through Novem­ber in many loca­tions, the chal­lenge for orga­niz­ers is to keep mem­bers’ voic­es and activ­i­ty at the cen­ter of their campaigns.

This arti­cle first appeared on Labor Notes