{"id":173411,"date":"2026-02-11T12:56:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T12:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/173411\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T12:56:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T12:56:31","slug":"massive-popular-support-for-san-francisco-teachers-in-first-strike-since-1979","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/173411\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive popular support for San Francisco teachers in first strike since 1979"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Fransisco educators on strike, February 10, 2026.<\/p>\n

On Monday, 6,400 educators went on strike against the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), setting up picket lines at 120 sites across the city. About 10,000 school workers, students and supporters rallied at Civic Center Plaza in a massive show of public support for the walkout, with thousands more gathering Tuesday at Mission Dolores Park and again at the Civic Center.<\/p>\n

It is the city\u2019s first teachers\u2019 strike since 1979 and marks a significant escalation in the growing class struggle against austerity. On Monday, hundreds of custodial and food service workers, principals and administrators joined the 6,400 educators on the picket lines in a sympathy strike.<\/p>\n

San Francisco educators are demanding higher wages, fully-funded family healthcare, and increased support for special education. While the average teacher salary in the city is $85,000, the cost of living for a family of four has soared to $339,123, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator. <\/p>\n

Conditions are even more dire for other school workers: paraprofessionals, who provide vital classroom and special education support, earn just over $31 an hour. Housing costs have skyrocketed, fueled in part by a doubling of the city\u2019s millionaire population.<\/p>\n

An educator holding up a sign at the teachers picket in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

The struggle of teachers is part of a growing movement in the working class. <\/p>\n

Last week, 35,000 members of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) voted to authorize strike action, while teachers in San Diego have called a one-day strike for January 26. At least 18 other districts across California remain without contracts, as school officials continue to stonewall negotiations, primarily over wages.<\/p>\n

Now in their third week of strike action, 31,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses and healthcare workers across California and Hawaii are fighting eroding wages, chronic understaffing and unsafe patient loads. On Monday, 4,000 pharmacy and laboratory workers joined the strike throughout Southern California. <\/p>\n

In New York City, 15,000 nurses have been on strike for nearly a month, demanding safe-staffing ratios and livable wages. On Tuesday, in an effort to cut off a united movement of workers on both coasts, the apparatus of the nurse\u2019s union in New York announced a sell-out agreement covering only some of those on strike, which it is seeking to ram through. <\/p>\n

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Significant sections of the working class are also seeking to fight back against a wave of rising layoffs, including workers at UPS and other logistics companies, the US Postal Service, Amazon, major newspapers, auto plants and in the tech industry.<\/p>\n

The explosion of class struggle is unfolding alongside widespread opposition to the assault on democratic and social rights spearheaded by the Trump administration. In the Bay Area alone, thousands of students have walked out of schools in recent weeks to protest ICE raids and the growing climate of repression.<\/p>\n

San Francisco teachers on strike, February 10, 2026.<\/p>\n

Tatiana, a paraeducator who has worked in the district for five years, spoke to the World Socialist Web Site from the picket line on Monday. \u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous. We\u2019re one of the richest cities in arguably the world and we\u2019re not paying our educators? I have two jobs. I work another job so I can do the job that I do at school. I babysit on the weekends so I work six to seven days a week. There\u2019s no way that you can live in the city of San Francisco on a paraeducator\u2019s wage. It\u2019s impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

San Francisco epitomizes the massive concentration of wealth in the US. The strike is taking place in the shadow of some of the richest corporations and individuals on the planet. <\/p>\n

San Francisco is home to 58 billionaires with a combined net worth of roughly $217 billion. According to AI computations, San Francisco\u2019s millionaires and billionaires are likely to receive collective windfalls in the low- to mid-tens of billions of dollars from the tax cuts enacted this year.<\/p>\n

The city faces a $100 million deficit, with the Democratic Party-led administration and state government insisting there is \u201cno money\u201d for livable wages. California Governor Gavin Newsom\u2019s most recent budget proposes withholding approximately $5.6 billion in school funding guaranteed under Proposition 98, citing \u201crevenue uncertainty.\u201d <\/p>\n

In other words, the state is deliberately underfunding education, forcing cuts particularly in districts like San Francisco that are under direct state supervision. To that end, SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su has stated that while negotiations continue, teachers\u2019 demands cannot be met because cuts are necessary to \u201crestore local control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local San Francisco Democrats have likewise sought to undermine the strike. Mayor Daniel Lurie, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Scott Wiener\u2014all Democrats\u2014issued a statement last Sunday urging teachers to take a 72-hour \u201cpause\u201d and refrain from striking, while hypocritically feigning sympathy for educators.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re already chronically underfunded,\u201d Kelly, a paraprofessional in special education, told the WSWS at the Dolores Park rally on Tuesday. \u201cIt is very frustrating that we\u2019re in a wealthy city, and I know a lot of our money comes from the state, some from federal and some from the city. But we\u2019re funding billion-dollar Super Bowl parties and ballrooms. Let\u2019s put some money into the kids. <\/p>\n

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\u201cLet\u2019s figure out why the schools are underfunded. It doesn\u2019t make sense when there\u2019s so much wealth and there\u2019s so much inequality.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United Educators of San Francisco (UESF), closely tied to the Democratic Party, has limited its demands to a paltry and inadequate 9 percent raise over two years for teachers and 14 percent for paraprofessionals. The district, for its part, is offering just 6 percent and 10 percent, respectively. <\/p>\n

While the union is calling for \u201cfully funded\u201d healthcare, the district has proposed covering only 75 percent. Teachers report paying as much as $2,000 a month in co-pays for family coverage.<\/p>\n

Armando and daughter at San Francisco teachers strike.<\/p>\n

The union bureaucracy\u2019s lowballing of wage demands comes after nearly 11 months of doing everything possible to block a statewide strike, forcing up to 75,000 teachers to work without contracts. <\/p>\n

Despite adopting the entirely hypocritical slogan \u201cWe Can\u2019t Wait,\u201d the California Teachers Association\u2014affiliated with both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association\u2014has actively sabotaged coordinated action across the state. Even now, with an overwhelming strike authorization in Los Angeles, United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) refuses to set a strike date.<\/p>\n

Educators should demand the immediate expansion of their strike across California, uniting school workers throughout the state, the country and internationally. <\/p>\n

The WSWS urges workers to form rank-and-file committees in every district to establish non-negotiable demands, including livable wages and fully paid healthcare for all. These committees should be completely independent of the CTA, NEA and AFT, which function as arms of the Democratic Party, working to suppress an all-out struggle.<\/p>\n

This struggle should become a rallying point for all workers facing attacks on their jobs, wages and living standards. <\/p>\n

To join the fight for rank-and-file committees, fill out the form below.<\/p>\n

I want to discuss joining or building an educators rank-and-file committee:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Fransisco educators on strike, February 10, 2026. On Monday, 6,400 educators went on strike against the San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[15,2871,82886,68401,101,103,102,104,106,105,82885,3797,46621,81622],"class_list":["post-173411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-education","tag-ice","tag-national-educators-association","tag-nea","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sfud","tag-teachers","tag-uesf","tag-walkouts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}