Teachers strikes aren't legal in West Virginia, but the teachers of West Virginia had one anyway. It lasted nearly two weeks as educators tried to do something about their pay, which was among the lowest in the nation.

In a state that Trump won overwhelmingly, the teachers held out against the Republican-controlled state legislature's attempts to give them less than the 5 percent raise they'd demanded—and today, the teachers got the raise they wanted.

As Sarah Jaffe points out, "the teachers were on strike as the oral arguments began last week in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees at the Supreme Court, a case that seems likely to push public workers across the country closer to the lack of protections West Virginians have."

It's an important case, for many, many reasons.

But as Jaffe notes, and as West Virginia shows, no matter which way the case is decided, workers will always have the option to do what these teachers did: withdraw their labor en masse to force change.