A Post-Mortem on the San Francisco Teachers’ Strike of 2026
Everyone is calling the San Francisco Teachers’ strike a victory. And, compared with what the district was trying to shove down their throats, it clearly was: 5% raise over the next 2 years for teachers, 8% for classified workers; fully funded healthcare for workers and dependents; improved protections for immigrant students and Special Education. It was also notable for the massive amount of solidarity and support by students, other unions, and the public.
However, like most strikes, this one was defensive, not progressive. It was a reaction to the bosses’ attempts to worsen compensation and working conditions even further than they had already deteriorated over the past five years. That 5% raise averages out to only a 2.5% per year. This isn’t even enough to compensate for the 2.6-2.9% inflation rate that we’ve had over the past 2 years, let alone enough help workers recover from the price shocks of 2022 and 2023, when inflation was 8-9%, and 4%, respectively; when rents were going up by as much as 20%; when grocery prices increased by 25%; when insurance prices were jumping by this much, or more. Thus, in terms of purchasing power, the 5% raise is actually a de facto pay cut. Even the 8% raise for classified workers doesn’t cover the losses in purchasing power over the past 5 years.
People have argued that the fully funded healthcare, because it erases out-of-pocket expenses that cost some teachers as much as $2,000 per month, amounts to a de facto raise of up to $24,000 per year for workers with children (less for those with no dependents) since they would no longer have to pay those healthcare costs themselves. But SFUSD workers never used to pay anything at all for health insurance. It was fully funded for employees and dependents until recently. So, rather than considering it progress; it would be more accurate to consider it a return to what the workers had just a few years ago. Furthermore, while fully funded healthcare is an extremely valuable benefit for workers (at least in the U.S., where we have no nationalized or single-payer system), it contributes nothing to workers’ pensions, which are based on the highest annual salary teachers have earned in their careers. The 5% raise does, however, contribute the value of their pensions, but nowhere near as much as the 9% that teachers had been asking for. And even that 9%, had they won it, would not have been enough to help them recover from the combined cost of inflation over the past 4 years.
Was the strike worth it? Most definitely! Had they not struck, or if they had lost the strike, conditions would be far worse. But the working-class, as a whole, has lost considerable ground over the past few years. 67% of U.S. citizens are currently living paycheck-to-paycheck. Even some middle-class people are now selling plasma just to be able to make ends meet. At the same time, the wealth of the nation’s 900 billionaires soared by 14% last year to $6.9 trillion. The San Francisco Bay Area, alone, is home to 82 of them—an increase of 14 over the previous year.
In the class war, the rich are clearly winning.
https://blog.theinterviewguys.com/salary-inflation-reality-check/
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/san-francisco-neighborhood-rent-surge-20803152.php
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americans-sell-plasma-inflation-middle-class-expenses-economy-rcna258390
https://www.investopedia.com/living-paycheck-to-paycheck-youre-not-alone-67-percent-of-people-are-in-2025-11812027
https://fortune.com/2025/12/08/how-many-billionaires-does-america-world-have-ubs/
https://americansfortaxfairness.org/the-billionaire-century/
#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #strike #teachers #schools #classwar #billionaires #oligarchy
