(The Center Square) – An Arizona bill to prevent teachers from striking is a “very poorly written bill” that could cost school districts money, according to Geneva Fuentes, communications director for the Arizona Education Association. The AEA is the state’s largest teachers’ union.
This week, House Education Committee Chairman Matt Gress, R-Scottsdale, introduced House Bill 2313, which prohibits Arizona public school teachers from striking and engaging in organized work stoppages.
HB 2313 says teachers who violate these provisions would relinquish their civil service protections, reemployment rights and other benefits associated with public school employment. This penalty would apply only if a teacher collaborates with others during a strike or an organized work stoppage.
HB 2313 would also mandate the Arizona Department of Education to decrease a school’s base support funding if there is an increase in remote learning as a result of any type of work stoppage.
“Taxpayers fund instruction delivered in classrooms,” Gress said. “When adults coordinate mass call-outs to shut down campuses, that is a strike in practice. It robs students of instructional time and throws working parents into chaos.”
“Public schools exist to educate children,” the legislator continued. “If someone organizes a work stoppage, they should not retain the privileges and protections of public employment. If regular school days are moved online because of coordinated political action, funding must reflect that.”
Fuentes told The Center Square that “Arizona is already a right-to-work state, which means that public employees, including educators, are already prohibited from striking.”
The bill “duplicates existing law,” Fuentes said.
She noted the teacher’s union is concerned that “the bill threatens to withhold significant funding from Arizona public school districts.”
“If politicians in Phoenix decide educators at a school are organizing in a way that they don’t like, it opens up a real Pandora’s box of state interference and state overreach in the private lives of educators,” Fuentes explained.
An example Fuentes raised was a situation in which a flu wave sweeps through a school. She asked what would happen if numerous teachers began saying they don’t feel well and might call in sick.
“Is the state going to look at that and say, ‘Well, clearly these teachers are organizing for malevolent means?’ ” she asked.
The bill “seems like another effort by Arizona legislators to punish and demonize teachers instead of doing what our students really need, which is to invest in our schools,” Fuentes said.
The Arizona Education Association is “concerned about opening the door for more politically motivated decisions about teaching in Arizona,” according to Fuentes.
She added that Arizona is losing thousands of teachers a year. Between July and November 2025, the state lost more than 1,000 teachers.
“Lawmakers seem like they are really focused on pushing a political agenda related to schools instead of focusing on the children and the educators inside of them,” she noted.
Chris Thomas, the Goldwater Institute’s director of legal strategy for education policy, told the Center Square that the Phoenix-based institute’s position on teacher strikes is that “when kids are not in school, there’s no way for them to learn.”
Thomas said there is “good public policy behind” not allowing teachers to strike, which is that they are “individuals who are important to making sure our government runs.”
Arizona taxpayers are responsible for funding state school districts and teachers’ salaries, he explained, adding that if teachers’ strikes were legal, it would put taxpayers in a “very tough position.”
Thomas said it is “problematic” whenever teachers engage in any type of work stoppage. He said the Goldwater Institute opposes teacher strikes.
When teachers organize any type of work stoppage, much of it occurs during school hours, he explained.
“That’s troublesome because [they] are using taxpayer-provided resources to further something that really goes against the public interest,” Thomas said.
Arizona had a teacher’s strike in 2018. Thomas said the teacher didn’t call it a strike but rather an organized work stoppage.
The work stoppage occurred from April 26, 2018, to May 3, 2018.
Teachers protested over former Gov. Doug Ducey’s 20% pay increase for public school teachers.
Union members organized a work stoppage by orchestrating “organized sick outs,” he stated.
Even with substitutes, Arizona schools did not have enough teachers to “staff the schools properly in order to safely run the schools in many instances,” Thomas explained.
Many of these schools had to close during the work stoppage, he added.
Students did not go to school during the work stoppage, and some school districts added days on or changed schedules to “make up those days that they missed,” Thomas said.
Despite its opposition to strikes, the Goldwater Institute is not taking a position on HB 2313, Thomas told The Center Square.
Meanwhile, national teacher unions continue to collect hundreds of millions of dollars annually in membership, The Center Square reported on Wednesday.
