Charter School Teachers Vote To Unionize

“Teacher’s working conditions are students’ learning conditions. When we fight for a contract, and improve our working conditions, students benefit.”

– CWC Educator

The right-wing has been largely successful in its decades-long attempt to get rid of unions. Since 1983, the union membership rate has been halved so that today only 10% of workers belong to a union. Unions represented almost 35% of workers in 1954. A stagnation in the incomes of middle-class workers has accompanied this decline in union representation.

Private sector employees have been most affected by these losses. While only 6% of these employees are represented by unions, 32.5% of their public-sector counterparts have these protections. One of the ways that right-wing politicians have tried to reduce these rates is to transfer education funds from public schools to privately run schools whose workers are not represented by unions.

Since California voted not to allow school vouchers in 2000, Privatizer’s primary way has been through charter schools. This has been particularly true in Los Angeles which has more students in charter schools than any city in the country. Unions do not represent employees in most of these charter schools, but that is starting to change.

Alliance College-Ready Public [SIC] Schools has spent over $1 million in propaganda efforts to resist having its employees unionize. A judge found that the charter school chain illegally blocked unionization efforts. To slow down the process, it took UTLA to court to force the union to treat each of its 23 campuses as separate entities instead of unionizing the entire chain as one organization. After some of these individual schools did vote to unionize, the charter chain changed its governing structure and tried to argue that the votes at those schools did not matter. The chain even closed one of its schools rather than negotiate with the union.

Another charter school operator that has lost its fight to unionize is the Accelerated Schools. After its workers voted to join SEIU 99, management retaliated by firing Hilda Rodriguez-Guzman, a parent and long-time whistleblower at the schools. When parents and other community members attended an open meeting of the charter’s governing board to speak on Rodriguez-Guzman’s behalf, they were met with armed security guards.

Citizens of the World is the latest charter organization to have its staff unionize. This nationwide chain of publicly funded private schools has a long history of conflict in the communities where it operates. It was so bad in New York City that the state forced them to shut down. The schools’ relationships with their teachers have not been much better.

The chain’s management admits that a “market analysis showed that [its] teachers, on average, are paid at the 23rd percentile when compared to…competitors.” It did try to raise its standing this year but did so with a plan that increased discontent. Newer teachers would have their pay increased, but the increased expense would be offset in part by reducing incentives teachers received for pursuing additional education credits. The school claimed that reducing the pay of its most skilled teachers would increase its diversity efforts.

In the aftermath of this plan, 90% of Citizens of the World’s teachers voted to unionize. With a margin that large, the union has a strong mandate as it negotiates on behalf of its constituents.

Having a union representing the teachers may also bring benefits to the students who attend Citizens of the World schools. Most importantly, the school will be able to recruit and retain high-quality teachers, increasing educational opportunities. Additionally, unions like UTLA have been able to increase services and opportunities available to students. As an example, students benefited from lower class sizes, more nurses on campus, and the expansion of community schools as a result of the 2019 strike.

With all schools facing teacher shortages and increased competition for a decreasing pool of available students, Citizens of the World is likely not the last charter school chain to face unionization. Will this decrease their value to their billionaire funders who were hoping that these publicly funded private schools would kill off the ability of workers to organize?

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Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, who serves as the Education Chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him “a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles.” For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.