West Virginia’s historic wildcat teachers strike has inspired rank and file workers across the nation — including right here in Chicago. On Friday, one of the strike leaders — elementary school math teacher Olivia Morris — participated in a public conversation with CTU political director Stacy Davis Gates about the wildcat strike and its ramifications for labor organizing and actions around the nation. The wildcat strike by West Virginia teachers — among the lowest-paid teachers in the nation — has ignited public support across the state and the nation, with teachers in states from Oklahoma to Kentucky looking at strategies to bring the WV model of strike resistance and rank-and-file democracy to their states. In West Virginia, teachers rejected efforts by political leaders and top union officials to convince them settle without an iron-clad guarantee of improved wages — enshrined in state legislation — not just for them but for all state public workers. Teachers struck for those guarantees even though West Virginia is a ‘right-to-work’ state which bans strikes by public workers. The wildcat strike also derailed plans by state legislators to jack up health insurance premiums, jam through a charter school bill and push other anti-labor bills like ‘payroll protection’. Teachers and their supporters across the state are demanding that West Virginia legislators reverse corporate tax cuts, raise the gas severance tax, and hold harmless any public programs that prioritize the needs of struggling state residents in any plan to fund their raises.