West Virginia is contagious: mass teacher walkouts in Kansas and Oklahoma

It’s been brewing for weeks and now it’s boiling over: Kentucky teachers are walking off the job en masse in statewide demonstrations triggered by dirty-tricking GOP state legislators who snuck a provision that gutted their pensions into a sewage bill; they’re joined by Oklahoma teachers who have endured endless abuse and humiliation from state lawmakers (first Clintonite Democrats; then vicious TGOP types who waltzed to power after right-wing “Democrats” committed political suicide by courting the wealthy over workers), and who have refused the meager bone they were thrown, walking out again and demanding justice for all public-sector workers.

They’re all emboldened by the success of West Virginia teachers, and because these Republican-seized states have eliminated real trade unions, they have no leadership to be co-opted, and instead are demanding real change, not pathetic compromise. They’re folk heroes to the people of their states, whose children suffer when teachers are attacked.

The 2018 mid-term elections are six months away.

The teachers’ rally began in Frankfort, Kentucky, just moments ago. Participants plan to march to the state Capitol.

“Thousands” are expected to rally Monday as a result of the passage of the pension reform bill, Chris Main, spokesman for Kentucky Education Association, told CNN.

In a surprise move last week, the state lawmakers passed a pension reform bill by tucking the measure into a Senate bill that had previously been about sewage system.

Furious over the changes, educators called out of work sick or requested substitutes in protest on Friday, resulting in the closure of more than 20 counties’ schools.

Kentucky Education Association President Stephanie Winkler encouraged teachers and students to rally against the bill Monday. She described the move by state lawmakers as “a bomb that exploded on public service.”

Teachers walk out in Oklahoma and Kentucky [Meg Wagner/CNN]