Union Win in Virginia

Fairfax County teachers have overwhelmingly voted to unionize.

This morning, it was announced that Virginia Education Unions, a joint coalition of Virginia-based AFT and NEA locals, had won a historic union election to represent over 27,000 teachers and school staff in Fairfax County, Virginia.

97% of all teachers voted to unionize and 81% of all support staff voted to unionize.

“Today marks the culmination of a 47-year-long fight to win collective bargaining at Fairfax County Public Schools. The reason our campaign was successful was because we all took agency over our own lives,” says David Walrod in a statement.

The union victory in the 9th largest school district is one of the largest teachers union elections in decades. It also has the potential to dramatically reshape the politics of Northern Virginia. 

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The union election is the result of decades of organizing. For decades, collective bargaining has been outlawed for public employees on Virginia.

However, as the state of Virginia began shifting more Democratic, unions began to heavily push the Democratic Party in Virginia to allow collective bargaining rights.

In 2020, former Democratic Virginia Governor Ralph Norrham signed a bill allowing municipalities to grant collective bargaining rights to public employees in Virginia. Since then, tens of thousands of public employees across Virginia have joined the labor movement, making it the fastest growing state for unions in the country. 

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