By: Dana Goldstein – nytimes.com – April 2, 2018

Thousands of teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky walked off the job Monday morning, shutting down school districts as they protested cuts in pay, benefits and school funding in a movement that has spread rapidly since igniting in West Virginia this year.

In Oklahoma City, protesting teachers ringed the Capitol, chanting, “No funding, no future!” Katrina Ruff, a local teacher, carried a sign that read, “Thanks to West Virginia.”

“They gave us the guts to stand up for ourselves,” she said.

The walkouts and rallies in Republican-dominated states, mainly organized by ordinary teachers on Facebook, have caught lawmakers and sometimes the teachers’ own labor unions flat-footed. And they are occurring in states and districts with important midterm races in November, suggesting that thousands of teachers, with their pent-up rage over years of pay freezes and budget cuts, are set to become a powerful political force this fall.

The next red state to join the protest movement could be Arizona, where there is an open Senate seat and where thousands of teachers gathered in Phoenix last week to demand a 20 percent pay raise and more funding for schools.

The growing fervor suggests that labor activism has taken on a new, grass-roots form.

“Our unions have been weakened so much that a lot of teachers don’t have faith” in them, said Noah Karvelis, an elementary school music teacher in Tolleson, Ariz., outside Phoenix, and leader of the movement calling itself #RedforEd, after the red T-shirts protesting teachers are wearing across the country.

Mr. Karvelis said that younger teachers had been primed for activism by their anger over the election of President Trump, his appointment of Betsy DeVos as education secretary and even their own students’ participation in anti-gun protests after the school shooting in Parkland, Fla.

“Teachers for a long time have had a martyr mentality,” Mr. Karvelis said. “This is new.”

The wave of protest is cresting as the Supreme Court prepares a decision in Janus v. Afscme, a major case in which the court is expected to make it harder for public sector unions to require workers to pay membership fees. But the recent walkouts suggest that labor activism may not need highly funded unions to be effective. Unlike in strongholds for labor, like New York or California, teachers’ unions in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona are barred by law from compelling workers to pay dues. Yet that has not stopped protesters from making tough demands of lawmakers.

Striking West Virginia teachers declared victory last month after winning a 5 percent raise, but Oklahoma educators are holding out for more.

Last week, the Legislature in Oklahoma City voted to provide teachers with an average raise of $6,000 per year, or roughly a 16 percent raise, depending on experience. Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican, signed the package into law.

Teachers said it was not enough. They have asked for a $10,000 raise, as well as additional funding for schools and raises for support staff like bus drivers and custodians.

About 200 of the state’s 500 school districts shut down on Monday as teachers walked out, defying calls from some parents and administrators for them to be grateful for what they had already received from the state.

To pay for the raise, politicians from both parties agreed to increase production taxes on oil and gas, the state’s most prized industry, and institute new taxes on tobacco and motor fuel. It was the first new revenue bill to become law in Oklahoma in 28 years, bucking decades of tax-cut orthodoxy.

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Source: Teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky Walk Out: ‘It Really Is a Wildfire’