Strike for America
Micah Uetricht
Verso Books
<p>The Chicago Teachers Union strike was the most important domestic labor struggle so far this century--and perhaps for the last forty years--and the strongest challenge to the conservative agenda for restructuring education, which advocates for more charter schools and tying teacher salaries to standardized testing, among other changes.<br><br>In 2012, Chicago teachers built a grassroots movement through education and engagement of an entire union membership, taking militant action in the face of enormous structural barriers and a hostile Democratic Party leadership. The teachers won massive concessions from the city and have become a new model for school reform led by teachers themselves, rather than by billionaires. <i>Strike for America</i> is the story of this movement, and how it has become the defining struggle for the labor movement today.