Ohio Teachers in Crisis and CWA on the Union Wave Into November

Two conversations that connect the stress of the classroom to the energy on the shop floor — one on a national survey showing the teaching profession is in crisis and what Ohio educators are facing in the November governor's race, and one on a wave of recent union wins and how CWA is mobilizing members to make their voices heard on November 3rd. Ohio Federation of Teachers President and AFT Vice President Melissa Cropper discusses the AFT national survey finding two-thirds of approximately 2,000 K-12 teachers rate their stress at a 7 or higher, 31% are considering leaving the profession and only 36% would recommend teaching to their children. Teachers are spending their own money on food and school supplies because school budgets and family budgets are both stretched to the limit. She discusses the Ohio University faculty contract fight now past 400 days, the book ban and AI pressures compounding classroom stress and the Ohio governor's race — contrasting Vivek Ramaswamy's stated goal of eliminating teachers unions, his $30 million-plus from a private school choice donor and his plan to eliminate state income taxes with Dr. Amy Acton's two-and-a-half-year ground game and commitment to bringing educators to the policy table. Then, CWA District 4 Director Frank Mathews discusses a wave of recent organizing wins — Wikimedia Foundation workers joining CWA Local 9415, Daily Herald newsroom workers in Chicago announcing a union after wages were cut 15% over a decade, Unwired Broadband fiber technicians winning in California's Central Valley and NCR ATM technicians winning in the Chicago-Milwaukee corridor — and connects them to the 71% public approval rating for unions now driven by the affordability crisis, the widening wealth gap and the organizing energy of Gen Z and millennial workers. He walks through CWA's three-prong voter mobilization approach of texting, phone banking and handwritten postcards and directs listeners to the endorsements by state and congressional scorecard at cwa-union.org. Visit oft-aft.org for more from the Ohio Federation of Teachers and cwa-union.org for more from CWA.