Former United Teachers Los Angeles president Alex Caputo-Pearl provides the history and logic of an early Community School experiment that set the foundation for future initiatives and transformed the lives of all those involved.
In preparing its members and communities to strike, United Teachers Los Angeles learned how to build broad backing for common goals, and prepare for nonviolent action to achieve them—lessons that can stand us in good stead as we fight authoritarianism.
Labor must adopt an intensified ‘Block and Build’ strategy for the coming years. It needs to expand its social base and movement infrastructure and build campaigns for multi-racial democracy as it organizes broad labor, community, and political alliances against authoritarianism, defends democratic rights, and fights for the most vulnerable.
