The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics
An indispensable window into the changing shape of the American working class and American politics.
40% off Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics until Monday, June 24th at 11:59PM EST.
Thirteen months after Trump allegedly captured the allegiance of “the white working class,” a strike wave—the first in over four decades—rocked the United States. Inspired by the wildcat victory in West Virginia, teachers in Oklahoma, Arizona, and across the country walked off their jobs and shut down their schools to demand better pay for educators, more funding for students, and an end to years of austerity.
Red State Revolt is a compelling analysis of the emergence and development of this historic strike wave, with an eye to extracting its main strategic lessons for educators, labor organizer, and radicals across the country. A former high school teacher and longtime activist, Eric Blanc embedded himself into the rank-and-file leaderships of the walkouts, where he was given access to internal organizing meetings and secret Facebook groups inaccessible to most journalists. The result is one of the richest portraits of the labor movement to date, a story populated with the voices of school workers who are winning the fight for the soul of public education—and redrawing the political map of the country at large.
"This is exhilarating reading about a movement that will be shaping politics for decades to come.” – Corey Robin, author of The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump
“Eric Blanc has written the best on-the-ground description and explanation of the red state teachers’ revolt. Blanc’s enthralling description of their struggles is a chronicle that should be widely read.” – Diane Ravitch, author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System
“Read this book to understand the many important lessons educators so powerfully taught about what it will take to rebuild a working-class movement, defeat Trumpism, and take on the billionaires.” – Jane McAlevey, author of No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age
"Read Eric Blanc's book!” – Sara Nelson, President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA
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