In the wake of a controversial Supreme Court decision regarding labor unions, National Education Association delegates voted last week to support and provide funding to teachers’ strikes and other statewide labor actions.
“It’s important that we bolster our reserves and our resources now, and I think we’ve seen that the rank and file is prepared to … support our sisters and brothers in other states,” said Clare Kelly, one of the delegates from Illinois who drafted a new business item to set up the strike fund, according to an Education Week report Monday. “We will have the funds to really put solid support behind any strikes coming down the pipeline.”
At its annual representative assembly in Minneapolis, NEA delegates showed support for two new business items — resolutions that have to be submitted by 50 delegates and take effect for one year, depending on whether leadership finds them to be viable resolutions. One item directed the union to “support a national campaign of labor action, including strike action where practicable” and the other directed it to establish funding for strikes and statewide labor efforts, such as short-term work stoppages, by requiring a voluntary membership donation of at least $3.
Kelly also said that she is working with NEA leadership to create a bylaw amendment that would make the funding permanent and would be voted on by the delegation next year, according to Education Week.
Two weeks ago the Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees that public-sector employees who are not union members do not have to pay union fees, arguing that charging nonmembers violates First Amendment rights. The ruling affected 22 states where unions were charging nonmembers “agency” or “fair share” fees.
AFSCME President Lee Saunders was invited to address the delegation last week, with NEA President Lily Eskselsen Garcia delivering the keynote address. “Billionaires have placed themselves over the rest of us,” she said. “They have no sense of servant leadership. Billionaires believe that they are our rulers.”
The NEA is the largest labor union in the United States, with 3 million members nationwide, according to the organization’s website. According to the Atlantic, the agency expects its revenues to decline by 15 percent next year, as a result of the Supreme Court ruling.
