{"id":180162,"date":"2026-02-16T14:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T14:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/180162\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T14:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T14:34:07","slug":"sf-teachers-strike-is-over-the-real-labor-battle-is-just-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/180162\/","title":{"rendered":"SF Teachers\u2019 Strike Is Over. The Real Labor Battle Is Just Beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019re reading Power Play, The Standard\u2019s twice-weekly newsletter about City Hall and San Francisco politics. To receive Power Play directly in your inbox, sign up here<\/a>. Got tips? Send to us at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All right, San Francisco, time to breathe. <\/p>\n

The first educators strike in nearly 50 years is over<\/a>. Parents can drop their kids at school once again. Teachers can trade their picket signs for chalk. District staffers can go back to figuring out how paychecks work<\/a>. Everything can return to normal, right?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t bet on it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Power Play\u2019s sources believe the strike, which the United Educators of San Francisco are touting as a major win, will embolden the city\u2019s other public-sector unions, whose members will soon confront Mayor Daniel Lurie\u2019s team at the bargaining table and in the political arena.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As we\u2019ve reported, the CEO tax<\/a> touted by unions will be a fight with the business community. Meanwhile, the mayor\u2019s charter reform effort, which could weaken labor\u2019s ability to propose ballot measures, will face staunch opposition from the San Francisco Labor Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are even more labor flashpoints coming: Firefighters and police officers are deep in contract negotiations, and\u00a0 the city\u2019s budget may bring waves of layoffs in June if Lurie\u2019s promises of structural reforms come to pass.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even more consequentially, in 2027, for the first time in nearly 50 years, city public employees will be allowed to strike during contract negotiations, thanks to a Public Employment Relations Board decision in 2023 (opens in new tab)<\/a> that struck down a \u201cno-strike\u201d provision in the city charter, giving public-sector unions a sharper arrow in their quivers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s more of a hardened, militant mood now,\u201d said John Logan, chair of labor studies at San Francisco State University. \u201cNo one wants to go out and strike, but they may feel if you don\u2019t strike, they\u2019re going to be taken advantage of.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re smelling a sequel. And with 34,800 city employees<\/a>, versus roughly 6,000 in UESF, the coming labor battles could make the teachers strike look positively quaint.\u00a0<\/p>\n

BLACKOUT EMAIL: The December blackout that caused mayhem across the city came roaring back into the news Thursday after The Standard was first to report<\/a> that Pacific Gas & Electric\u2019s CEO said Mayor Daniel Lurie directed the utility to provide power to the opera house \u2014 though the executive later retracted his statement. Lurie\u2019s office has also denied that he directed any PG&E resources to the venue, which at the time was hosting his daughter\u2019s performance of \u201cThe Nutcracker.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But a new email obtained by Power Play shows that Lurie was involved in the conversation of getting power restored to the War Memorial Opera House. <\/p>\n

An email dated Dec. 21 from Kate Sofis, the venue\u2019s managing director, was sent roughly four hours after PG&E posted a photo on X (opens in new tab)<\/a> showing its trucks outside the opera house.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good news for later tonight\/early tomorrow \u2014 and I would like to personally recognize both the Department of Emergency Management and the Mayor himself \u2014 who has been very engaged with us directly \u2014 we have succeeded in getting PGE to relocate two massive generators from another site to the Opera House,\u201d Sofis\u2019 email said. The generators were used to enable two Dec. 22 performances.<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s office deferred to its previous comment that \u201cof course city leaders were communicating directly with those institutions and PG&E to help scheduled performances for tens of thousands of attendees proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sofis did not respond to a request for comment. The contents of the Dec. 21 email were first reported (opens in new tab)<\/a> by the California Post.<\/p>\n

\u2014 G. G.<\/p>\n

SF GOES FOR MAHAN: He may not be the mayor of San Francisco, but he\u2019s certainly taking a lot of cash from the city\u2019s bigwigs. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan is on the fundraising circuit for his gubernatorial bid, seeking support from well-heeled San Franciscans hoping to propel the moderate, pro-business candidate to Sacramento.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The latest campaign filings, submitted Thursday and Friday, show Mahan pulling in $5,000 from the former CEO of Weebly, David Rusenko; $78,400 split between the primary and general elections from former BART board member Nicholas Josefowitz; 156,8000 from real estate developer power couple Dan and Jaclyn Safier; and $78,400 from business executive Tali Rapaport.<\/p>\n

Other donations include $78,400 from Y Combinator Managing Director Jared Friedman, $39,200 from Y Combinator general partner David Lieb, $78,400 from Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, $39,200 from DoorDash cofounder Stanley Tang, and $50,000 from Mercury CEO Immad Akhund. As of Wednesday, Mahan had brought in a total of $8.5 million, according to a source close to the campaign.<\/p>\n

\u2014 G. G.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ICYMI:\u00a0<\/p>\n

SORDID TALE: Mickey Gerold led a seemingly charmed life of private clubs and powerful friends. But behind closed doors, his ex claims, he coerced her<\/a> into sex work.<\/p>\n

POWERLESS: If you\u2019re curious as to why the December PG&E power outage was such a mess, here\u2019s a start<\/a>: poor communication, a poorly trained AI model, and issues putting out a fire at a substation.<\/p>\n

OVERSIGHT, SHMOVERSIGHT: Critics say the \u201cstreamlining\u201d of the SF Police Commission imperils police oversight<\/a>, but a task force wants to axe its authority anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019re reading Power Play, The Standard\u2019s twice-weekly newsletter about City Hall and San Francisco politics. To receive Power…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[4421,4637,101,103,102,104,106,105,78003],"class_list":{"0":"post-180162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-matt-mahan","9":"tag-power-play","10":"tag-san-francisco","11":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","12":"tag-san-francisco-news","13":"tag-sf","14":"tag-sf-headlines","15":"tag-sf-news","16":"tag-sfusd-strike"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180162","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=180162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}