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Service & Solidarity Spotlight: Fairfax County Public School Workers Vote to Unionize

Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

Fairfax County Public School workers voted to unionize, creating a wall-to-wall union of 27,500 teachers, custodians, teaching assistants, bus drivers, and more. The new bargaining unit, Fairfax Education Unions, is one of the largest K-12 unions on the East Coast, and is affiliated with both the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA). Approximately 80% of the operational workers and 96% of the instructional workers voted for the union.

“On-the-ground organizing got us there,” says Fran Lewandoski, a school social worker with 20 years in. “Person-to-person organizing, recruiting interested people, getting leaders in buildings, providing them with guidance.”