In preparing to strike, United Teachers Los Angeles learned how to build broad backing for common-good goals and prepare for nonviolent action to achieve them — lessons that can be used in the fight against rising authoritarianism.

This article is the third in a series published by Convergence and Jacobin on the initial years, 2014–2020, of the transformation of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA). It focuses on 2017–18, when the union was preparing for a potential strike in 2019. Conditions were different then, but many of the lessons UTLA learned in that process bear on the urgent tasks at hand. Despite the rapid rise of MAGA authoritarianism, we are still in a contested political moment, and labor has a key role to play.

We’re in a critical moment for the labor movement to build resist

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