That government unions use their monopoly to hold taxpayers hostage isn’t news. But in California the teachers union is taking political extortion to a whole new level with a coordinated campaign threatening strikes across the state.
The California Teachers Association launched the operation a year ago with district unions that coordinated the expiration dates of their contracts. The goal is to make “a set of shared demands” at “the same time across the state,” the CTA said in a press release.
This week San Francisco and its 50,000 students paid the price. The United Educators of San Francisco went on strike Monday demanding a 9% pay raise over two years and health coverage fully paid for by the district, among other things. After keeping kids out school all week, on Friday they settled with the district for raises of 5% over two years and the full health benefits they demanded. Other staff will get pay hikes of 8.5%. The tentative agreement costs a reported $183 million.
San Francisco teacher salaries already start at about $80,000, and the average is $100,000. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget this year includes $149 billion for public schools, or about $27,418 per pupil. That’s up from $16,352 in 2019. Per pupil spending has grown about twice as fast as inflation owing to rich non-salary benefits. San Francisco teachers can retire at age 63 with a pension worth 85% of their final pay, plus free health benefits for life.
The new contract won’t help the school district’s budget, which faces a deficit of more than $100 million. The district is under state oversight for its finances. Last year the district caved to the union when it rescinded a layoff plan as it sought to trim expenses, but the budget gap has to be closed somehow. Meanwhile enrollment declined by more than 3,500 students, or 7%, from 2018-19 to 2024-25.
Los Angeles is the next union target. The teachers union voted last month to authorize a strike after the L.A. district rejected its demand for pay raises—a 16% immediate raise for new teachers, plus 3% for all teachers next year and other pay bumps, according to the Los Angeles Times. Most of the district budget is spent on personnel, and it is considering staff cuts after it projected a $1.6 billion deficit by 2027-28.
San Diego on Friday averted a one-day teachers strike planned later this month over union demands for more special education staffing. At least three unions in smaller districts, including Twin Rivers near Sacramento, have voted to authorize strikes.
Federal pandemic cash gave school districts the luxury of postponing difficult budget decisions that make unions unhappy. From 2018-19 to 2024-25, Los Angeles enrollment fell 18% but the district cut full-time employees by only 1%, according to Edunomics Lab.
The losers in this hostage-taking are students and parents. “Every day we are kind of scrambling,” one San Francisco parent, Clara Kelleher, told ABC 7 News this week during the strike. “A lot of us are feeling very derailed.”
Many states have made public union strikes illegal for this reason—though unions still strike because their collective bargaining haul when cities and school districts settle makes up for the fines they have to pay.
California students in some places can attend charter schools if they clear the waiting list, but they have no private school choice. Will this outrageous union blackmail prompt Gov. Gavin Newsom to opt into the new federal school-choice tax credit? It will cost his state nothing, though union leaders might not forgive him if he runs for President. The teachers unions really are among the most destructive actors in American political life.