Report > Teacher Unions, Parents’ Rights
Teacher Union Resistance to Reopening Schools: An Examination of the Largest U.S. School Districts
By Mike Antonucci | October 29, 2021
Introduction
Since the COVID-19 outbreak that led to the closure of most of America’s public schools in March 2020, there have been numerous efforts to reopen schools for in-person instruction. Although successful in some places, every reopening attempt had to confront the power and influence of public-school employees, usually expressed through their labor unions.
Unions were naturally concerned with the health and safety of their members, but the conditions they set on a return to the classroom seemed to many observers to be excessive and opportunistic.
Union officers took to the airwaves to denounce this perception as unfair. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), raised some eyebrows on March 19, 2021, during an interview on the Black News Channel. When Weingarten said AFT had been “trying to reopen schools since last April,” the average American could be forgiven for wondering what she was talking about.
Her claim referred to the AFT’s public release of its report, A Plan to Safely Reopen America’s Schools and Communities, on April 29, 2020 — a mere six weeks after public schools began closing in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Before publishing that report, AFT, along with the other major government employee unions—the National Education Association (NEA), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)—signed a letter to Congress dated April 21, 2020, that outlined their reopening wish list.
Teacher union officers across the country repeatedly professed that they wanted U.S. public schools to reopen more than anyone. This report documents their positions and actions on school reopenings in seven large school districts from the first closings in March 2020 to the start of the 2021-22 school year.
