Labor researchers have long argued that America needs unions to preserve and strengthen the middle class. But now, when American democracy is hanging in the balance, we also need unions to stand up for democracy. And for unions to be effective agents for democracy, they need to truly practice it.
If my experience as a public school teacher in New Hampshire is any guide, these challenging times present us with an opportunity to increase engagement within our unions, a first step to re-democratizing the voices of workers everywhere. Unions without democratic structures or cultures become fatigued and moribund, or develop an entrenched status quo that makes organizing more difficult. But a culture of debate and a steady infusion of leaders from rank-and-file members on the “shop floor”—or in my sector’s case, the classroom—can keep unions engaged with their members in a way that is not only responsive and effective, but can make unions a social and political pillar of democracy.
In 2021, when I saw the rise of an expansive voucher system in my home state and the passage of a law aimed at restricting the teaching of honest history, I could not help but notice that these attacks on public schools and intellectual freedom coincided with a decline in democratic engagement in our union.
Like many teachers across the country, my first response was to get involved locally. Working with fellow teachers and administrators, we applied for and were awarded a grant to diversify our class bookshelves. Later, a number of those books were confiscated as a result of the chilling effect from a law to censor history instruction, which became known as the “Divisive Concepts” law of 2021. Similar laws have been enacted in other states, and the federal Department of Education has embraced a similar legal strategy to New Hampshire’s, with the goal of chilling classroom dialogue.
After serving as the vice president of our local, an opportunity came my way when a board member at the state level of my union resigned. Few teachers I spoke to knew what the board really did. I counted myself among the mystified members, and I wanted to see if joining the board could provide a way for me to change things, to prevent more books being taken away from students and teachers. But an entrenched status quo was an obstacle that my coworkers and I had to overcome.
The status quo in unions has long been the “service model” of operation, which tends to emphasize elite advocacy over building real power among rank and file members to effect change in our communities. The service model goes hand in hand with the staying power of “business caucuses”—cliques of long timers within unions that see the role of the union as simply to deliver the services of contract negotiation, legal advice, elite level lobbying in capitals, and credit card promotions—and leaves little room for new avenues for member-driven change. This status quo is maintained to the detriment of democratic engagement, leadership development, and organizing.
But to fulfill the promise of organized labor, and the promise of democracy, unions must be more than transactional. They must be based on the common value that we share as workers: that our worth is more than our paychecks, our value more than the dues we pay, and that, in my case, we as classroom educators are the heartbeat of public schools in America. Sooner or later, unions that become distanced from their rank-and-file membership place themselves on life support. That’s why it’s so important to shrink the distance between members and leadership.
A first step that teachers unions around the country can take to democratize themselves is to rotate leadership from the classroom into positions of power. When the “leadership ladder” has been pulled up, or when there has been a lack of investment in developing future leaders, long-time leaders can become entrenched, and knowingly or unknowingly perpetuate an anti-democratic culture within the union. This can look like an overreliance on one leader, a hollowing out of democratic protections such as term limits, or a decline in the solicitation of member feedback.
For rank-and-file members in our state, democratizing unions meant devoting time to create competitive races for leadership positions. As the saying goes, movement forward requires friction, and friction produces heat. In our attempt to bring about a bolder vision, organizers in my union worked with fellow members, spoke up for a living wage for support staff, and tried to be the leadership we wished to see. Bringing candidates together from around the state, we ran as a slate for positive change in the union and propelled a record turnout, garnering more than one-third of the vote and attracting support from many long-time members who were first-time union election voters. While we ultimately lost this election, our team of educators celebrated the progress we made in starting to shift the culture within the union toward a democratic classroom orientation.
During the historic wave of “Red for Ed” protests in 2018 and 2019, it was rank-and-file members who came together to spur on the movement, which culminated in legislative wins in West Virginia, Arizona, and other states. West Virginia, which ranked close to the bottom nationally in teacher pay, saw a 5 percent increase in pay following their labor action. Teacher activism in Arizona yielded a $273 million increase from the state aimed at improving teacher pay. But unions nationwide still continue to wrestle with elevating democratic culture and practices that allow the people who are most affected by the issues of the day to have the greatest role in shaping the fight for a better future.
The trajectory for becoming a democratic union that can fight and win is a long one. It’s a process that even long-established traditions of union activism can struggle to sustain. The United Teachers of Los Angeles’s (UTLA’s) tremendous win in elevating Cecily Myart-Cruz to the union’s presidency is an example of how the struggle can be successful. Myart-Cruz, part of the Union Power Caucus, ran as part of a slate of educators bringing energy and a commitment to union democracy back to their union. Together, they negotiated victories for the “common good” including caps on class sizes, the creation of dedicated green spaces at schools, and the defeat of a two-tiered health care plan. Their work has been chronicled by Alex Caputo-Pearl, who himself ascended from the rank-and-file to UTLA President before eventually returning to the rank-and-file. The dynamic of power-sharing, stewardship, and an adherence to a democratic process resulted in major gains for public schools in Los Angeles, with the union adopting more broad-based community visions of what they could accomplish.
Our union in New Hampshire is much smaller than UTLA, but the size of the union hasn’t limited our capacity to be a proof point in the movement for union democracy. Seizing the momentum, our team launched a raft of reform resolutions. We proposed that the union take on issues such as promoting mental health supports for students and staff and creating a culture of belonging in our schools. We went further, proposing that the union adopt resolutions on gun-free school zones, universal public pre-K, play-based learning, access to nature, universal free breakfast and lunch in all public schools, and supporting the freedom for every student to learn and read what they want, especially in the face of book bans and assaults on teaching accurate histories. These measures were all adopted at the union’s annual meeting in 2024.
By addressing “low-hanging fruit” with our resolutions, we were able to show members what kind of union we could be, and that all of us could have a say in its collective vision. Successfully running candidates for union office and passing resolutions got the wheel of democracy to slowly start turning in our union again. Now, rank-and-file members are seeing that it’s possible to run for office, to bring a new idea forward, to become part of the fabric of our union, and to create changes to the union’s constitution and bylaws to better reflect the values from the classroom and give locals a leg to stand on when it’s time to advocate in schools. All across New Hampshire, members can now say that universal free school lunch is our state union’s position, and that we can all work toward realizing this policy goal.
Unions must dream big to act big. We must revitalize our organizations to address the inequities of our current system of education all across the United States. We can’t afford to have our public schools crumbling under the feet of our students.
Educators and allies, it’s time we build the unions that our profession, our communities, and our nation deserve.
These views are of the author alone and do not represent his employer, union, or any affiliates.