In the space of just a few short years, the nation’s teachers’ unions have gone from being regular White House guests during Joe Biden’s administration to leading nationwide protests against the Trump administration’s education and economic agenda.
For the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and their affiliates working to rebuild their ranks and beat back years of rising anti-union legislation and litigation, positioning themselves at the vanguard of the fight against the administration’s education agenda is part of a two-pronged strategy to preserve their influence.
Teachers’ unions are plaintiffs in nearly a quarter of the lawsuits filed against Trump administration education policies this spring, looking to block the administration’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and bar collective bargaining for teachers at the more than 160 Department of Defense schools. They’ve been fighting at the state level, too, to increase funding for early child care, K-12 education, and health care, and to block private school vouchers.
Locally, the teachers’ unions are attempting to harness that activism to expand the base of their support among parents and communities after being blamed, fairly or unfairly, for prolonged school closures during the pandemic.
It all amounts to an incredibly fine tightrope for the two organizations and their local affiliates to walk. They are still powerful, together representing about 3.7 million active and retired teachers, paraprofessionals, and health workers, and command more than $355 million a year in combined net assets. They remain among the groups best organized and best positioned to push back on the Trump administration’s education agenda.
But the headwinds are fierce: A 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision that has made it harder to collect revenue, an aging core workforce, and above all, an ascendant Republican Party that has clearly signaled it wants to kneecap the teachers’ unions—even as it courts labor in other industries.
Conservative pushback at the federal and state levels have thrust the unions into a much broader political fight than one centered on education.
“We’re thinking too narrowly if we’re thinking that teachers’ unions are just focused on education, or just focused on supporting teachers,” said Melissa Arnold Lyon, an assistant professor of public policy who studies labor issues at the University at Albany. “Education decisionmaking is moving out of education arenas, and … teachers’ unions are engaged in broader politics outside of education now.”
Teachers’ unions ‘in the bullseye’
Though conservatives have long been critical of teachers’ unions, their attempts to weaken the unions’ influence have ramped up even as they have attempted to attract members of other labor groups, such as police and firefighters.
“Teachers’ unions have always moved differently from the unions that the Trump administration has been fairly successful in courting,” said Bradley Marianno, an associate professor of educational policy and leadership at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who studies teacher labor. “Teachers’ unions have always walked this line of being a professional organization for college-educated workers, so their policy stances are quite obviously going to differ from auto workers or longshoremen or other labor groups.”
In part, that’s because the unions tend to be even more left-leaning than educators at large.
At all levels, teachers trend more progressive than the average voter, even in heavily red states. An analysis of the 2022 elections found more than two-thirds of political contributions from K-12 teachers nationwide went to Democratic candidates.
But in that same election cycle, more than 90% of campaign contributions from the largest teachers’ unions themselves went to Democrats. Both NEA President Becky Pringle and AFT President Randi Weingarten have spoken at the Democratic National Convention, and until earlier this month, Weingarten served on the Democratic National Committee.
Particularly in conservative parts of the country, that creates a disconnect, some right-leaning analysts point out.
“To the degree that union leadership’s attention is focused on national and international politics ... and not on the job-related issues that challenge teachers every day, they make themselves vulnerable to charges that they are not prioritizing the issues their members care about,” said Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Project 2025, the mammoth conservative policy agenda developed by the Heritage Foundation that has formed the playbook for both the Trump administration and conservative state governors and legislatures, suggests ways to make it easier to undermine labor unions and takes direct aim at teachers’ unions. It calls for Congress to revoke the NEA’s more than century-old charter, granted in 1906, arguing that “the union promotes radical racial and gender ideologies in schools.”
While the NEA’s charter grants no formal power or protection, it provides a unique legitimacy beyond the group’s position as a labor union. And the Project 2025 plan’s rationale for ending the Education Department hinges in part on its argument that K-12 and higher education unions “have leveraged the agency to continuously expand federal expenditures.”
The union leaders themselves see the attacks as part of broader agenda. Randi Weingarten, the president of the AFT, who has been a lightning rod for anti-union rhetoric from both parties over the years, argues that such efforts are building blocks for the Trump administration’s larger aims of reducing the footprint of welfare programs, like food stamps and Medicaid, while pursuing tax cuts that by most estimates would benefit the wealthiest Americans.
“We find ourselves in the intersection of the entities that provide opportunity for regular folks in America—public education, the labor movement—and so that’s why we’re in some ways in the bullseye of this administration,” Weingarten said.
School choice has expanded despite fierce opposition from the unions
President Donald Trump distanced himself from the Project 2025 blueprint during his presidential campaign. But his administration’s efforts to follow parts of it—such as his executive order aiming to dismantle the Education Department, his appointment of one of its architects to a key position at the agency, and an order restricting bargaining among federal school employees “broadcast its intentions fairly decisively,” said Kate Dias, a high school math teacher and the president of the NEA’s state affiliate in Connecticut.
“I am confident that this administration is seeking to really destabilize these public institutions,” she said.
For example, supporters of school choice—largely, though not exclusively, conservatives—have been highly successful at pushing for programs that allow public dollars for education to flow to private schools. Thirty states and the District of Columbia now have some type of such a program, according to Education Week’s private school choice tracker, and 19 states offer private school choice to all K-12 students or are on track to in the coming years. This year alone, lawmakers in 14 states introduced legislation to create or expand vouchers and similar programs.
Teachers’ unions successfully helped lobby against a federal version of a school voucher program during the first Trump administration, under then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Now, the idea is closer to passing than ever: House Republican lawmakers included a federal voucher plan in their version of a budget reconciliation bill in May, which would provide up to $5 billion in tax credits to create private school scholarships.
“The battle that we face this time is much harder than what we faced before [in the first Trump administration],” said NEA President Becky Pringle. “Even if the playbook is similar, the battle is harder. … We will use those strategies with the relationships we’ve built with elected leaders that will allow us to win some of these fights. We know that we have Republicans who join Democrats in supporting public education.”
Teachers’ unions’ tactics evolve as they fight back
As they confront a shifting political landscape, the unions’ tactics are evolving. They are still active on the legislative front, but are also trying to work more effectively at the grassroots level.
They have been fighting in statehouses and in local contract negotiations to shore up existing protections, though their success in lobbying has varied from state to state—mostly depending on which party is in charge.
In Virginia, the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers, one of the first new unions created after the state began allowing collective bargaining in 2020, last summer successfully codified a requirement in its contract that districts give “just cause” for disciplining or firing a teacher.
But a similar law proposed in Connecticut, which would strengthen due process protections and require a neutral arbiter in teacher-discipline procedures, died in the legislature.
Unions faced a significant setback in Utah, where Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed into law a measure in February that, among other things, bans collective bargaining for all public-sector workers and bars union employees from participating in the state retirement system. The 18,000-member Utah Education Association helped lead a massive effort this spring to gather and validate more than 250,000 signatures to put a repeal of the law to vote.
Cox must decide by June 30 whether to hold a special recall vote or include the recall with the midterm elections in 2026.
Even support from pro-union Democrats is not always a sure thing. In May, Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis broke with his party in the legislature by vetoing a bill that would have made it easier for unions to compel new educators to join the union and pay dues. Polis argued in a letter vetoing the bill that while he was “pro-union, pro-worker,” Colorado’s current requirements had “created peace and stability between employers and unions.”
Among the unions’ newer tactics have been seeking new coalitions and broadening the portfolio of things they’re willing to fight about.
The Connecticut Education Association gained the most traction during the most recent state legislative session working on education policies that went beyond the typical bread-and-butter labor issues. It has partnered with engineers and HVAC technician groups to advocate for state grants to improve indoor air quality in schools, and it successfully advocated with families and pediatricians for a new $300 million early child care and education fund.
“Coalitions are powerful when you can identify the key issue and allow different voices to tell the story of why that’s impactful so that it doesn’t feel so isolated,” Dias said. “It doesn’t feel like a niche issue. It feels like something that matters to a broader base of people.”
Her union has also focused on widespread communication with parents and other community groups around common priorities, which can help dissolve the image of teachers being at odds with parents on education issues.
“I’m drawing some hope from the fact that, when we talk about these issues at the personal level, local people are not looking to dismantle public education or unions when you get down to the nitty-gritty,” Dias said.
Among the best-known examples of this strategy has been pushed by the AFT’s Chicago affiliate. During the first Trump administration, the Chicago Teachers’ Union partnered with community groups to create language for a district policy barring school officials from asking students about their immigration status or sharing information with federal agents without a criminal warrant.
Incorporating these broader community issues, which the CTU dubs “social unionism” or “bargaining for the common good,” has gained popularity among labor groups in other cities such as Los Angeles and Oakland, Calif. as they try to build public support.
CTU President Stacy Davis Gates credited the approach with helping the union secure a four-year, $1.4 billion contract in April—its first without a strike threatened or carried out since 2012—though it also hinged in part on its relationship with Mayor Brandon Johnson, who previously worked for the union and appointed school board members who pushed for a contract settlement.
Still, provisions include new class size limits, building upgrades, protections for immigrant and LBGTQ+ students, and even partnerships with other city agencies for housing assistance.
“Bargaining for the common good means you see everyone and you use the vehicle of the contract as a way of providing for everyone,” Gates said. “I think we’ve been able to expand and grow stronger because people do see a benefit for themselves, their families, and they also see a very discernible benefit in the young people that they engage with.”
There’s little empirical research to back up the notion that this form of bargaining ultimately boosts membership; the question has not been extensively studied. What research has been done doesn’t conclusively link the two, according to Stephanie Ross, an associate professor of labor studies at McMaster University in Canada, who has studied the issue in Canada and the United States.
Expanding membership, despite new obstacles
Fundamentally, analysts say, if the unions want to play the long game on the issues they hold dear, they will need an effective plan to shore up their membership. A look at their numbers from federal labor reports illuminates why.
AFT has grown by about 200,000 members in the last decade, from just under 1.6 million members in 2013-14 to nearly 1.8 million members in 2023-24, according to filings with the U.S. Department of Labor—in part due to continued expansion into occupations beyond education, such as nursing.
Weingarten attributed this growth to the union’s willingness to “fight back and fight forward,” not just on education issues but broader issues in local unions’ communities. “We don’t do it from Washington down, we do it local up, but the key is to make sure that people feel power.”
The NEA, which limits membership to those who work in education as well as those entering and retired from the field, has had a harder time growing its membership. And in both unions, the number of full-time, dues-paying teachers is flat or falling, while the ranks of retired and nonvoting members has increased.
In 2018, the Supreme Court, in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31, ruled that teachers and other public employees who are not union members do not have to pay “agency fees” to cover their share of the cost of bargained contracts and other services the union provides. The NEA’s membership, which had been rising slightly before Janus, fell by more than 160,000 nationwide from 2017-18 to 2023-24, to 2.8 million.
“Even though it’s been five years since Janus, it’s hard to get a straight story on how exactly Janus is impacting the teachers’ unions,” Lyon said. Much of the impact, she surmised, was felt in states that previously charged nonmembers the fees. (Many other “right to work” states already prohibited agency fees.)
Those membership changes can undermine unions’ financial standing. The NEA’s net assets have fallen from nearly $346 million in 2017-18—before the Janus ruling and the pandemic—to less than $317 million in 2023-24. The national union, funded mainly though dues, collected about $381 million from this stream in 2023-24, up from nearly $374 million in 2017-18.
During that time, the NEA has moved from spending about a third more on representing members than on political activities like lobbying to nearly equal spending on both.
The AFT’s much smaller net assets have stayed more stable, rising from nearly $36 million in 2017-18 to nearly $39 million in 2023-24. It received more than $220 million in dues and fees in 2023-24, up from less than $197 million in 2017-18. AFT spends more than twice as much on representing members as it does on lobbying and political activity, but spending in both areas has risen in that time.
State and local unions, especially those that were once powerful, have felt the effects of the turbulent period since Janus, accelerated by waves of legislative efforts—mostly but not always in conservative states—to reduce unions’ influence and make it harder to get and keep members.
Several conservative organizations, in the meantime, have been working actively to peel off union members.
This spring, the libertarian, anti-union think tank Freedom Foundation, known for developing model legislative language for anti-union bills and holding opt-out drives for employees in union workplaces, launched the nonprofit Teacher Freedom Alliance, intended as a national “nonunion alternative for educators.”
In its first four months, the Teacher Freedom Alliance has led more than 20,000 teachers nationwide to opt out of their local unions, according to Michael Ciccio, the Freedom Foundation’s national director. In July, the alliance will hold a national summit to train 400 educators to act against their local unions, via opt-out campaigns, alternative professional groups, and other activities.
In both its mission and testimonials from teachers, the alliance argues teachers’ unions promote a “radical socialist agenda” in schools, and pledges to “change the direction of public education, returning us to traditional, American values.”
Anti-union efforts can backfire, though.
The Florida Education Association, which is affiliated with both NEA and AFT, lost more than 24,000 members in the five years following the pandemic, from more than 140,000 in 2018-19 to less than 116,000 in 2023-24, according to federal labor records. Hoping to deal a killing blow, Gov. Ron DeSantis and a Republican-held legislature passed an extensive anti-union measure in 2023, which, among other things, removed payroll deductions for membership dues and required public sector unions to maintain at least 60 percent of eligible employees as members, or be disbanded.
But teachers in Miami-Dade, Florida’s largest county, overwhelmingly voted last fall to keep the existing United Teachers of Dade over the Miami-Dade Education Coalition, a challenger group backed by the Freedom Foundation. And of more than 100 local unions who held a membership vote under the law since 2023, all have won recertification, said Andrew Spar, the president of the Florida Education Association.
In fact, Spar said the higher profile and greater union activity has helped the FEA regain some numbers this year, to 220,000 dues-paying members.
“Clearly, this was the governor’s law. ... It’s not going to change with this governor there,” Spar said. “So we’re focusing our efforts on continuing to grow our union and continuing to make sure our members understand that there are people out there who do not want educators to have a voice in their profession.”
Can teacher strikes help unions’ bottom lines?
And though it’s still comparatively rare for teachers to leave class in protest, strikes have become significantly more common and broader in scope since the nationwide 2018 “Red for Ed” protests in which thousands of teachers, parents, and community members took to the picket lines for greater funding of public education, pay and benefits for teachers, and child welfare issues. Many of those protests developed from broad grassroots coalitions, which teachers’ unions helped leverage into political momentum for education issues.
“We’ve seen a historic increase in strike activity,” even in states that don’t permit collective bargaining, said Marianno, from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
We are not going to be passive in this landscape.
Those strikes can pay dividends for unions’ bottom lines: A 2024 study found teacher strikes are associated with 8% higher pay and smaller class sizes—even in states that don’t permit strikes—and the benefit came in part from state-level education funding boosts in the wake of teacher activism. Larger school district budgets in turn make it easier for teachers to negotiate on pay, class size, and other issues.
Higher-profile activity may help unions engage more and younger teachers. The Utah Education Association’s campaign to repeal the ban on collective bargaining “has really helped our union in getting young people to recognize the value of belonging [to UEA] and being able to have that collective power and strength,” Pinkey, the UEA president, said.
Already, the shift toward broader policies, and forming coalitions with other advocacy groups, reflects the interests of younger teachers “who have different policy stances than some of the older generations that were focused on the bread and the butter, traditional issues of wages and working conditions,” Marianno said.
“I think we’re going to see them continually broaden their membership base as a way to stay relevant,” Marianno said.
And, union leaders say, it’s important to keep focused on what is within their power to change—not on the political headwinds.
“I’m very worried that fear will take over and when you make decisions out of fear, those are weaker decisions. So we’re trying to build up our capacity,” said Dias of the Connecticut Education Association. “We are not going to be passive in this landscape.”
