Alex Caputo-Pearl was a teacher in South Los Angeles for twenty-two years before being elected United Teachers Los Angeles President (2014–20) and UTLA NEA VP (2020–23). He just finished a year as a practitioner-in-residence at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, where he worked with Jane McAlevey, and currently works as a UTLA member with LAUSD community schools.
The Los Angeles teachers’ union was profoundly influenced by Jane McAlevey, writes former president Alex Caputo-Pearl. If the loving and assertive push was her trademark, then thinking audaciously big was its complement.
The Los Angeles teachers strike showed that bottom-up organizing can overcome extraordinary odds. We can do the same throughout the health and education sectors — and at Amazon.
The United Teachers of Los Angeles are on the precipice of a historic strike against corporate education reform.