In today’s news and commentary, San Francisco teachers go on strike, the NLRB reverses course on SpaceX, and striking New York City nurses reached a tentative agreement with hospitals.

This week, San Francisco public school teachers launched their first strike since 1979 after nearly a year of stalled contract talks with the San Francisco Unified School District. In 1979, the strike lasted over six weeks and ended after union and district leaders agreed to raise teacher salaries and rehire 715 laid-off teachers. This time, according to the United Educators of San Francisco, teachers are seeking a 9% raise over two years and improved health benefits, citing rising health-care premiums that the union says have pushed employees to leave the district. The strike currently has no end date, and district schools will remain closed for about 50,000 students until a deal is reached. Although this is the first significant walkout by San Francisco teachers in decades, it mirrors a broader pattern of increased union activity across California. The California Teachers Association launched a “We Can’t Wait” campaign last year to encourage and support more forceful action in labor negotiations, and public school teachers in Richmond, California, just across the bay, won an 8% raise over two years after striking for nearly a week last December.

Meanwhile, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) dropped unfair labor charges against SpaceX after concluding that it lacked jurisdiction. During the Biden administration, the NLRB filed a complaint in 2024 alleging that SpaceX unlawfully fired eight engineers who helped circulate an open letter criticizing SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. In a recent dismissal letter, however, the NLRB reversed course, following the lead of a January 14 National Mediation Board (NMB) advisory opinion, which concluded the NLRB lacked jurisdiction over the company. Although the NMB typically regulates rail and airline carriers, the NLRB adopted NMB’s position that SpaceX’s “space transport” operations qualify as covered air transportation and that the company thus falls outside the National Labor Relations Act’s (NLRA) regulatory framework.

Finally, NYC nurses reached tentative three-year agreements covering roughly 10,500 members at Montefiore Health System and several Mount Sinai hospitals, ending a weeks-long strike at those facilities. The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) says ratification votes will begin this week, with nurses returning to work on Feb. 14 if members approve the deals. Negotiations are still ongoing at NewYork-Presbyterian, where more than 4,200 nurses remain on strike. NYSNA said the proposed contracts include total wage increases of more than 12% over three years, along with commitments to hire additional nurses and new steps aimed at reducing workplace violence. Notably, this strike lasted far longer than the last major walkout at Mount Sinai and Montefiore in 2023, when nurses secured a 19% raise after three days. Throughout the most recent walkout, hospital leaders emphasized budget pressures caused by changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, predicting that the changes could cost New York hospitals more than $8 billion in revenue over the next three years. Union leaders countered that the system’s financial position remained strong, citing multimillion-dollar executive compensation packages and substantial spending on temporary nurses during the strike.