THE FIRST UNIONIZED ABA WORKPLACE IN THE U.S. IS ON STRIKE

33 Registered Behavior Technicians at Verbal Beginnings in Maryland have been on strike since July 20, 2026. Over seven weeks. The first unionized ABA workplace in the United States, and they are striking over a stalled contract, no raises in more than three years, and a pay cap of $20–24/hour.

$4 billion a year. That is the size of the ABA industry (Bloomberg, May 2026). The people doing the work – the RBTs providing direct therapy to autistic children and adults – are capped at $24/hour, with no raises in three years, and a contract their employer will not finalize.

What this tells you about the model

ABA is a $4 billion industry built on behavior modification. The training programs that certify Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) teach the diagnostic criteria for autism but not how autistic people think, not what masking costs us, not what the research says about long-term outcomes, not what autistic adults report about the therapy they received as children (Bloomberg investigation, May 2026).

82% of BCBAs work with autistic people. The training gap is not an oversight. It is the model. Behavior modification does not require understanding the person. It requires compliance.

The people doing the direct work – the RBTs – are paid $20–24/hour in an industry generating $4 billion annually. They have not received a raise in over three years. Their employer will not finalize the contract. They are on strike, in the first unionized ABA workplace in the country, because the industry that built itself on compliance will not extend the same standards to its own workers.

Why this matters to me

I was one of the late-70s, early-80s guinea pigs. Strapped to a machine that controlled lights and noise: if I got "excited" (read: autistic), the static went up and the lights got brighter until I learned to suppress it. They called it therapy. I call it what it was: aversive conditioning on a child who couldn't consent.

The ABA industry today is not using the same machines. The frame is the same: modify the behavior, not the environment. Suppress the autistic traits, not the conditions that make masking necessary. Train compliance, not agency.

The workers striking at Verbal Beginnings are RBTs. They are the ones in the room with autistic children and adults, carrying out the behavior plans the BCBAs design. They see what the work costs – to the clients, and to themselves. They know what $20–24/hour with no raises in three years means in a $4 billion industry.

The gap is the model

$4 billion a year. Training programs that teach nothing about how we think. Pay caps and stalled contracts for the people doing the work. The first unionized ABA workplace in the U.S., on strike for over seven weeks.

The industry built on modifying autistic people's behavior will not modify its own. The gap is not an oversight. The gap is the model.

Sources:

- Peoplesworld.org, "Autism support workers in Maryland on first ever strike," 2026.
- Bloomberg, "What Is ABA Therapy? Autism Treatment Faces Questions of Effectiveness," May 1, 2026.
- Bloomberg investigation finding: 82% of certified behavior analysts work with autistic people; most training programs teach nothing about autism beyond diagnostic criteria.
- Bloomberg investigation finding: ABA is a $4 billion/year industry.