The 6,500-member union has been negotiating for nearly a year with San Francisco Unified School District, which has roughly 50,000 students. The district closed more than 100 schools on Monday as the union solidified a strike roughly a week after members approved a walkout in two rounds of voting. More than 250 principals, office clerks and custodians in two other unions also went on a in solidarity. 

Negotiations stalled because of disagreements over pay raises, health care coverage and working conditions for special education teachers. 

“What this contract represents is stability for San Francisco Unified for years to come, and its commitment to us and coming to an agreement immediately will secure the schools that San Franciscans deserve,” said union President Cossandra Curiel at a outside Mission High School. “You can expect to see strong picket lines until that agreement is achieved.”

The union is sticking to its for a 9% and 14% pay raise for teachers and paraprofessionals, respectively, over the two-year contract. The current starting for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree is $73,689. The paraprofessional hourly is $31.52. 

Union officials are also asking for 100% health care coverage, along with caseload limits and more time for administrative tasks for special education staff. 

After multiple hours-long bargaining sessions this weekend, the district with a 6% raise over two years. It proposed implementing the union’s demand for a new special education workload model as a pilot program at five schools through June 2028. Curiel said Monday that district officials offered 75% health coverage.

San Francisco Unified officials have a $102 million budget deficit makes it impossible to meet the union’s demands. The union said the district can cover the increased costs with its budget reserve. 

“We understand that they are under a form of strain from the state, or that’s what their excuse has been up to now,” Curiel said. “We see that they have a reserve of almost $400 million. We believe that today’s dollars are for today’s students.”

The district the $400 million is not in reserves, but is already budgeted to prevent layoffs and address the deficit. 

“Using a one-time fund balance for permanent raises creates a funding cliff,” the district said in a . “Once the one-time money runs out, the district would be forced to make even deeper cuts to classrooms and lay off more staff to cover the ongoing cost.”

San Francisco Unified does have $111 million in its reserve fund, but the district said that money is for emergencies.

Superintendent Maria Su said in a that the district’s proposal “provides fiscal certainty by matching spending to available resources” and “keeps the district on a clear runway to exit state oversight.” The state started in 2024 because of projected budget deficits.

“Let me be clear, I do not want a prolonged strike,” Su said in a Sunday night. “I do not want a strike at all.”

Curiel said the district and union did agree on a proposal to classify schools as for immigrant students, staff and families. The policy bars federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from entering school grounds or obtaining records without a criminal judicial warrant. Staff will also receive three hours of training to enforce these policies.

Teachers protested in front of several schools Monday morning and hosted a rally in the afternoon that featured Randi Weingarten, president of American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest union for educators. On the in front of Mission High School, social studies teacher Cindy Castillo said she’s striking to improve school stability.

“Stability means that we can retain our educators of color and our students and families of color. It means we can fully staff security, who can build relationships with our students and prevent violence and harm,” she said. “It means our students and families feel safe and supported.”

Matt Alexander, president of the San Francisco Unified school board, he supports the strike and believes it’s a necessary step.

“I am so proud of these educators for standing up for what is right,” he said. “A strike for the first time in half a century takes courage. It takes sacrifice. It was not what these educators wanted, but they’re willing to do what needs to be done to create the schools our students deserve.”

The union’s political action committee began the 2024 cycle with $4 million in cash on hand, raised $12 million and has spent $13 million – leaving it with roughly $2 million to dole out before Election Day, according to the latest data from , the non-partisan organization that tracks money in politics.

The vast majority of its spending this election cycle – roughly $9 million – was donated to super PACs supporting Democrats and to local, state and federal candidates and parties. Among the top receivers: $3 million to the Senate Majority PAC, $1.6 to House Majority PAC, $445,000 to the Harris Victory Fund ($300,000 of which was originally donated to the Biden Victory Fund before the president stepped aside), and $420,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.  

The AFT is traditionally one of the biggest supporters of Democrats, lending both the power of its PAC’s purse for advertising and mailings, and its strength in numbers for boots-on-the-ground get-out-the-vote operations.

Among the top 20 PACs based on contributions to Democratic candidates, total fundraising, total spent, and total spent in independent expenditures and communication costs, the AFT’s PACs place 8th. It’s donated $1.5 million to democratic congressional candidates, including to 196 House Democrats and 19 Senate Democrats.

“Kamala Harris and Tim Walz believe in the promise of America and will spend their time solving problems, not sowing fear, so every American can partake in that promise,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a . “But it’s not just what we can gain, it’s also what we will lose with Trump and Vance: our democracy, our freedoms, our public schools, our right to have a union, a vote and a voice. Extending the ladder of opportunity or destroying it.” 

“Union members get this,” she said. “And that’s why we will fight every hour of every day for the next fortnight to get out the vote to elect candidates who proudly stand for freedom, democracy and opportunity.”

Earlier this month, the AFT teamed up with the National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees – the nation’s largest public service unions – in a coordinated, multi-state voter outreach initiative across battleground states.

“This joint action represents a significant escalation of labor’s political engagement, with the unions pooling resources and mobilizing their combined membership of several million workers and includes people of all backgrounds working across the public service – as nurses, child care providers, sanitation workers, first responders, teachers, education support professionals and higher education workers, among others,” the of the effort reads.

Notably, labor unions play an outsized role in many of the election’s most crucial swing states: 21% of votes cast in Michigan in the 2020 presidential election were from union households, representing approximately one-fifth of the electorate, according to the union. The same is true for Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where union households accounted for 18% and 13% of votes cast, respectively.

Mayor Eric Adams and the city’s second-largest union, the United Federation of Teachers, struck a tentative five-year agreement on Tuesday, one that significantly raises starting salaries for newly hired teachers and includes a major expansion of remote learning.

The deal, which must be approved by the union’s 120,000 members, guarantees raises of 17.58% to 20.42% by 2026, including compounded wage increases and bonuses.

In addition to broadening an existing pilot on remote learning, high schools and combined middle-high schools will be able to offer virtual learning programs after school and on weekends. Students and teachers will have to volunteer to participate in the remote programs, according to a summary of the agreement.

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The UFT and the Adams administration also agreed to a yearly, perpetual retention bonus, which will top out at $1,000 by 2026, and an additional one-time $3,000 ratification bonus.

The starting salary for new teachers would be $72,349, including the bonuses, by the end of the proposed agreement — up from the current $61,070 floor, according to the UFT. The top salary for paraprofessionals would be $56,761.

The deal is retroactive to September 2021, when the most recent contract expired. It provides for 3% raises for the first three years and 3.25% bonus in the final two years, a pattern similar to that in February.

Adams announced the agreement from the City Hall rotunda Tuesday afternoon alongside UFT President Michael Mulgrew, Schools Chancellor David Banks and Office of Labor Relations Commissioner Renee Campion.

“I’m proud to announce that the city of New York has reached a tentative five-plus year contract agreement with the United Federation of Teachers that provides substantial wage increases for the people who teach, support and safeguard our children and secures a fair deal for taxpayers as well,” Adams said.

Virtual Expansion

The after-hours virtual learning expansion in the nation’s largest school district that allows students to log in, from their own school buildings, to take online courses taught by public school teachers in other parts of the city.

The program outlined in Tuesday’s tentative agreement would begin in the 2023-2024 school year, with 25% of high schools eligible to be selected. All high schools will be eligible to participate by 2027-28, according to the UFT’s summary of the agreement.

Students and teachers would not be required to participate in virtual learning. Rather, schools where students miss hours or days of school because of work would be able to offer virtual lessons outside of traditional school hours. Teachers would not take extra time in order to teach the after-hours virtual lessons: their time will be redistributed.

Adams said he was “proud” of the proposed remote learning experiment, saying it “will create new opportunities for our students, including those who want the ability to take classes at non-traditional times like evenings and weekends, as well as those whom traditional in-person schedules don’t work for.”

Mulgrew also noted the remote-learning pilot would also benefit students who fall behind on literacy.

In line with the contract covering DC37 municipal workers, some UFT members who do not work directly in schools would be eligible to work remotely up to two days a week under the deal, according to the teachers’ union.

Campion and Mulgrew said health care premiums and benefits, a key concern for many union members, remain unchanged.

“We’re not getting rid of our benefits,” Mulgrew said in response to questions from THE CITY. “I wish the rest of America would do what we’re doing here in New York City because health care is a crisis and it is destroying the pocketbooks of so many families.”

Mulgrew also announced the tentative agreement will cut in half — from 15 to eight years — the length of time it takes most teachers to reach a salary of $100,000.

The union president also highlighted the retention bonus as a win for members.

“And that goes on forever, in perpetuity,” Mulgrew said. “We’re saying to all of our titles and every member, whether you’re in the first year or your 25th year, New York City is saying that we appreciate you, and we recognize the challenges that you take on every day.”

Additional reporting by Katie Honan

THE CITY is an independent, nonprofit news outlet dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York.

Judging from the rain and official rhetoric, it was a dark Tuesday morning in Los Angeles.

Officials at the Los Angeles Unified School District were predicting a rough three days for 420,000 students and their families as the district buckled in for a strike led by SEIU Local 99, which represents custodians, bus drivers, special ed assistants and other support staff. With members of United Teachers Los Angeles joining in solidarity, all schools were shut down.

Nearly work for a living, and about live below the poverty level. To support these families in particular, the district partnered with the city and county of Los Angeles to run food distribution sites and staff recreation centers for child care. 

But despite the gloom, a range of positive attitudes were on display: joy, good humor, conviction, hope. Local 99 and teachers union members huddled under tents against the rain at nearly 500 schools and sites across the district, according to Local 99. 

The 74 visited a handful of them and has these sketches to share. 

Susan Miller Dorsey Senior High School, 6:46 a.m.

Strikers arrive slowly at Susan Miller Dorsey High School, still shaking off their sleep.

A squad of teachers union members wrestles a cover onto the extendable frame of a lawn tent. 

Special education teacher Stacia Trimmer, whose 15 years with the district have done little to blunt her Brooklyn accent, works hand in hand with special ed assistants, one of the units represented by Local 99. 

“They work hard, and they love the children,” she says.

The theme of the strike is respect, and Trimmer wonders whether everyone in the district, including teachers like herself, could better appreciate the contributions of Local 99’s members. 

“Maybe we’re all guilty of it,” she says. “Maybe we don’t speak to them enough.” 

Another teacher puts on Rihanna’s “Bitch Better Have My Money,” and Trimmer starts dancing.

The choice of music down the block, at the Local 99 tent, is a bit more subtle: Bob Marley’s “Duppy Conqueror.” Don’t try to show off… For I will cut you off …

Fourteen strikers from both unions are gathered under two tents. 

Local 99 member and special ed assistant Stephanie Smiley has been with the district for 29 years. As a school system veteran, she’s in a relatively comfortable position, though she would be making more if she were paid for 40 hours a week. As it stands, her contract calls for only 30.

“I’m here fighting for the ones who need help,” she says.

She also feels the pressure of short-staffing, saying she sometimes works on the de facto security detail at Dorsey, monitoring the cafeteria and recess areas for “potential altercations.”

There’s a collective gasp from the strikers when a commuter in a gray Prius rams the curb, and sigh of relief when the motorist drives off, apparently unharmed. It’s about 7:20, almost an hour into the scheduled picket. 

The wind and rain are picking up.

Baldwin Hills Recreation Center, 8 a.m.

Volunteers in yellow vests and rain gear stand under tents in the Baldwin Hills Rec Center parking loop. Stacked around them are boxes of food meant to tide families over for the next three days.

Jake Varner, a 23-year-old substitute teacher, says there was a steady stream of cars right when they opened at 7:30. By now, traffic has slowed.

He’s working with Luis Clarke, a community member, and Lauren Brooks, a senior at King Drew Magnet High School. 

“My mom signed me up,” Brooks says. “‘ ‘Cause they’re on strike, I didn’t have anything else to do.” 

A man pulls up in a white Jeep. “Two kids,” he says. The volunteers hand a sack of fruit through the window and place boxes in his trunk — 12 meals total for the three-day strike.

Among some staples (cereal, applesauce, pizza), his kids might be pleased to find a strawberry creamsicle and mango sorbet. 

Clarke, who says he’s a mentor for kids in the community, suspects it was God who brought the three volunteers together, pointing out that both Varner and Brooks love science and want to be doctors.

“Who did that?” he asks. “Who orchestrated this? We didn’t even know we was going to be on the same team.”

Grand View Blvd. Elementary School, 8:43 a.m.

Car horns are honking. Music is blaring. There’s talk among the picketers of moving down to Venice High School, a mile away. But Grand View Elementary, where a large crowd has gathered, isn’t lacking for action.

Local 99 member Carlton Van Vactor, a health care assistant at Grand View, cradles a to-go cup of coffee at his chest.

He says if there’s one thing he’s fighting for, it’s better staffing. 

As a health care assistant, he works with some of Grand View’s highest-needs students. They have breathing devices, feeding tubes.

While feeding one student through a tube attached to his belly, which can take up to an hour, he has to keep an eye on another student who “bites, scratches, throws tantrums, everything” — someone whom, in other schools, a special ed assistant would attend to.

“I do a job probably for about three people right now,” he says. With the district since 1989, he makes $26 an hour, working seven hours a day.

Los Angeles Public Library, Mar Vista Branch, 3:09 p.m.

Many on the picket line are district parents or grandparents. Some say they were lucky to have found child care for the three days of no school.

Other parents might depend on local resources. In addition to local recreation centers and parks, L.A.’s libraries made space for kids in the event of a strike. 

It’s starting to rain again, and outside the Mar Vista Branch of the L.A. Public Library, Marianne Justus hurries in with her mother and two young sons. Her oldest is a first-grader at Short Ave. Elementary School.

“I lucked out,” she says. Her mom, who lives in Newport Beach, drove up to help Justus and her husband with the kids Tuesday, and is taking her oldest back down to Newport for Wednesday and Thursday.

While her family can bear three days with no school, she fears a longer work stoppage. Remote schooling — especially for her oldest son, who needs speech therapy — was “horrendous.” 

“Most kids are still trying to catch up, and kids with special needs are really trying to catch up,” she says. 

“I totally understand why they’re striking,” she says. “They need higher pay. I just hope it doesn’t go longer than three days.”

As Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and the school board met inside the downtown building, custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers and classroom assistants — arriving on buses from across the district — waved placards and chanted, “no justice, no peace.”

“I installed air filters to make sure students and staff would be able to breathe clean air in their classrooms while they were there working and studying,” SEIU 99 President Conrado Guerrero said from the flatbed of a truck. “We’ve gone from heroes to zeroes.” 

The two sides have been bargaining since 2020, when the pandemic interrupted negotiations. The 30,000-member SEIU 99 says the district is offering no raise for the 2020-21 school year, a 5% raise for 2021-22 and a 4% increase for 2022-23. Amounting to about $1,000 additional per year for most workers, that’s insufficient, said Max Arias, the union’s executive director. 

“These were the essential workers” in the district, he said. A strike authorization vote would take place in January.

Arias wants minimum wages for members increased from $18.50 per hour to $24. The union’s demands also include more eight-hour days and paid training for bus drivers and those in other positions. “We’re at an impasse,” he said. 

In a statement, the district said, “Los Angeles Unified continues to engage in respectful negotiations with our labor partners. We are committed to compensating our employees fairly in this current economic environment, while also preserving our ability to provide services to our students in a sustainable manner that promotes lasting student achievement.”

Talk of a strike is the latest conflict the district has faced with one of its labor unions. United Teachers Los Angeles opposed Carvalho’s original plan to spread four learning “acceleration days” for students throughout the school year. The district rescheduled them for winter and spring break, even though students are now less likely to participate because they’re on vacation. of the district’s more than 420,000 students have signed up for the first two days, Dec. 19-20, according to the district.

SEIU 99 wanted the district to stick to the original schedule because it would have provided members additional work. 

The teachers union isn’t close to a strike vote yet, but members are increasing pressure on the district. Earlier this month, they at multiple locations.

The union went on a in January 2019, with many of the it is making now, such as smaller class sizes, less standardized testing and more nurses, librarians and counselors. The union wants a 20% raise and argues that the district has over $3 billion in budget reserves to cover it.

But on Tuesday, teachers union members were on hand to support SEIU 99 members. 

“We’ve been negotiating for seven months. They’ve been negotiating for three years,” said UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz. “It’s about solidarity.”