States split on teacher strike bans — Arizona vs. Maryland

The bill was a direct response to the Jan. 30, 2026 protests, when teachers across the country participated in a national shutdown against immigration enforcement by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The protests followed the fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by ICE agents. In Tucson, more than 20 Tucson Unified School District schools closed for the day after a high rate of teacher call-outs AZPM. The Tucson Education Association's president, Jim Byrne, told Arizona Public Media that the call-outs were not a coordinated effort and that each employee made an independent decision.

Gress disputed that framing. "When adults coordinate mass call-outs to shut down campuses, that is a strike in practice," he said. "It robs students of instructional time and throws working parents into chaos." Pima County Superintendent Dustin Williams, a Democrat, said the legislature appeared to be retaliating against teachers who chose to protest federal immigration enforcement. Rep. Analise Ortiz, a Democrat, said in her nay vote that the day taught students "what a First Amendment right is."

Arizona Education Association President Marisol Garcia said the bill attacks teachers' First Amendment rights and will worsen the state's already severe teacher shortage. Arizona ranks 48th in the nation in per-pupil spending Arizona Mirror. More than 1,000 teachers left the profession in the 2025-2026 school year alone, with 763 quitting before the school year even started KOLD. Garcia said proposals like HB 2313 only add to existing pressures and do nothing to address the real challenges facing Arizona schools.

A companion proposal, House Concurrent Resolution 2040, would go even further — asking Arizona voters to approve new constitutional limits on how teachers organize. It would bar school districts from using public resources to support labor organizations and prohibit teachers from distributing union information using any public resources, including school printers or library facilities KNAU. Referrals sent to voters don't need the governor's signature, bypassing Gov. Katie Hobbs, who has frequently sided with teachers in vetoing similar legislation.

Maryland's House Bill 1492 takes the opposite approach. More than 20 Democratic lawmakers introduced the bill, which would repeal Maryland's existing ban on teacher strikes and let public school employees — including teachers and librarians — walk off the job without fear of retaliation Maryland General Assembly. Maryland's ban, like most state-level strike prohibitions, was rooted in the legal argument that public employees can't strike against the sovereign government and that essential public services must continue regardless of labor disputes.

Nationwide, roughly 38 states and the District of Columbia ban or heavily restrict teacher strikes The Center Square. Twelve states explicitly allow them, including California, Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In a handful of states — including South Carolina, Utah, and Wyoming — the law is ambiguous. Teacher strikes happen anyway in states where they're technically illegal, including Washington state, because penalties are often unclear or unenforced Education Commission of the States.

The legal foundation for teacher strike bans rests on the exclusion of public employees from the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which gives most private-sector workers the right to strike and bargain collectively. States are free to extend or restrict those rights for their own workers Education Commission of the States. This creates a patchwork where the same activity — a coordinated work stoppage over pay and conditions — is legal in one state and a fireable or funding-penalizable offense in the next.