Big Union Win in Virginia Schools where Bargaining Suddenly Legal

Union supporters held up signs detailing why they voted for a union in Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia. The yes side won overwhelmingly. Photo: Fairfax Education Unions.

https://labornotes.org/2024/06/big-union-win-virginia-schools-where-bargaining-suddenly-legal

June 13, 2024 / Joe DeManuelle-Hall

Education unions just won a massive victory in the fight to bring collective bargaining rights to Virginia’s public sector. Workers at the Fairfax County Public Schools voted this week to unionize, creating a wall-to-wall union of 27,500 teachers, custodians, teaching assistants, bus drivers, and more.

The new bargaining unit is one of the largest K-12 unions on the East Coast, according to the National Education Association.

Fairfax County is in Northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., and the Fairfax County school district is by far the largest in the state.

But many teachers, especially newer ones, live outside Fairfax County because housing there is too expensive. And “a lot of custodians do two or three jobs just to provide for their families,” said Ernesto Escalante, a building supervisor at Crestwood Elementary and an activist in the union drive.
OUTLAWED FOR DECADES

FULL story at link above.