2018–2019 education workers' strikes in the United States

The 2018–2019 education workers' strikes in the United States began on February 22, 2018, after local activists compelled the West Virginia state leadership of the West Virginia branches of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association into holding a strike vote. The strike—which ended when teachers returned to their classrooms on March 7—inspired similar, statewide strikes in Oklahoma and Arizona. It also inspired smaller-scale protests by school staff in Kentucky, North Carolina, Colorado, and led to a school bus driver strike in Georgia. Additionally, around this time, adjunct professors at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia protested over pay.

The strikes continued in the fall of 2018 when there was a collective bargaining shortcoming between the United Teachers Los Angeles union and the Los Angeles Unified School District in September 2018, prompting a strike that began in January 2019. This also resulted in a teachers' walkout in Virginia, a long-time right-to-work state, as well as in Denver and Oakland, California. The national wave of strikes has been referred to as Red for Ed or #RedForEd, with striking workers often wearing red shirts to show solidarity. Reasons given for the choice of the color red range from the fact that many of the initial strikes were in red (Republican-controlled) states to the idea that public school budgets are in the red.

Motivations for the strikes included desire for increased wages for teachers and support staff, larger school budgets, smaller classrooms, and other issues. The strikes varied in their levels of success, with the West Virginia strike considered mostly successful, where Oklahoman teachers received relatively few concessions.