One reason that big charter donors fund charter schools is to break the teachers’ union, whether it’s AFT or NEA. Big business has opposed labor unions since they were first organized. 90% of charters have no union affiliation, and the Waltons and DeVos-funders want to keep it that way. A few days ago, a charter school in D.C. voted to unionize. Why? Because the teachers think they need a union to bargain with the charter leadership and make sure they get due process, health benefits and a pension. They want what only unions can get.
For Immediate Release May 2, 2024
Contact:
Kelley Ukhun
513/578-2646
kukhun@dcacts1927.com
Capital City Public Charter School in D.C. Votes for a Voice on the Job
All 200 Teachers and Other School Staff Will Be Members of
DC Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff, DC ACTS, AFT
WASHINGTON—Teachers and all other school staff at Capital City Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., voted tonight to unionize, joining the membership of the District of Columbia Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff, DC ACTS, an affiliate of the AFT.
Capital City Public Charter School has 200 employees, including teachers, instructional assistants, counselors, librarians, secretarial staff and custodians, all of whom will be represented by DC ACTS. The school educates 1,000 pre-K through 12th-grade students. DC ACTS also represents all employees at both Mundo Verde Public Charter School campuses in D.C.
“Capital City educators and other employees want to have a voice when the school makes decisions about the education of their students. They are the folks who are in the classrooms every day and who work the closest with the kids and know best what’s needed for them to thrive and excel. Only through a union can this be accomplished,” said DC ACTS Acting President Kelley Ukhun, adding that she hopes to be able to negotiate a first contract in the coming months.
Besides having a voice in decisions made about their school, Capital City employees said they want to end a “right to work”-contingent atmosphere in which every staff member was subject to annual contract renewal, making it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain staff given the precarity. Educators and staff also indicated a collective desire for better retirement benefits, a more progressive and transparent discipline procedure (including a grievance and arbitration system) and a duty-free lunch period.
Guadalupe Campos, a Capital City high school Spanish teacher, strongly supports the union.
“I believe that all workers, regardless of rank or position, deserve the opportunity to participate in decisions that affect students, our families and ourselves. United, we can create a healthy, equitable and sustainable environment for all,” she said.
Kate Lenegan, an after-school teacher, said: “I support this union because our staff is what makes Capital City great, and our students deserve the best from us.”
AFT President Randi Weingarten said this labor victory reflects a growing trend of workers organizing across the country, growing the labor movement so that we can be a force that improves the lives of workers, their families and their communities.
“Whether it’s at a traditional public school or college, or whether it’s at a charter school or any other workplace, working people are seeing the value of a union as a vehicle to access a better life for themselves, their families, and the communities they serve,” Weingarten said. “That’s why the AFT has seen unprecedented organizing growth, organizing 146 new units across multiple sectors, including education, higher education, healthcare and public service since our last convention in July 2022.
Charter school educators see this, Weingarten said. The AFT represents about 7,500 educators and school staff across the country at more than 250 charter schools. More than 1,000 teachers and staff at more than 15 charter schools have organized with the AFT just since the start of the 2022-23 school year, and hundreds of those have already won strong first contracts at their schools.
“Union membership can be transformative in the life of any working person. I am so glad the educators of Capital City have elected to join us. We are so happy to welcome them. We want working folks everywhere to know: The AFT is the home of the people who make a difference in other people’s lives. We fight for real solutions that make our workplaces and our communities safer, stronger, and more democratic, and we show up when it counts. Together, we can win the future,” Weingarten said.
The Washington Teachers’ Union, which represents educators at District of Columbia Public Schools, applauded the Capital City employees’ vote.
“All staff, whether in regular public schools or charter schools in the private sector, deserve the rights and respect afforded to them through union membership. We are all stronger together, and the WTU looks forward to working in partnership with DC ACTS as it grows with this exciting win at Capital City,” said WTU President Jacqueline Pogue Lyons.
This is a labor victory. All teachers deserve to be paid a living wage have access to healthcare and a pension that enables them to retire with dignity. If charter schools level up to the benefits of working in a public system, perhaps grifters will less likely see charters schools as a target for profiteering. Then, it may be more possible to bring them under the direction of the public school district and implement a comparative level of accountability.
From Dana Milbank in the Washington Post Today Opinion | Trump at his trial and Gaza protesters are all sleeping through a crisis – The Washington Post
In recent months, Trump said Israel should be allowed to “finish the job” in Gaza and boasted about cutting off aid to Palestinians. And he has vowed, if elected, to reimpose his travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries and “expand it even further.” For those student protesters too young to remember, this is the guy who led the anti-Muslim “birther” campaign against President Barack Obama; who claimed thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheered the 9/11 terrorist attacks; who said “Islam hates us” and employed several anti-Muslim bigots in his administration; who wanted to have police surveillance of U.S. mosques; who called for a “complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”; who retweeted anti-Muslim propaganda videos by a white supremacist; and who told figures such as Palestinian American Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Somali American Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) to “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
So it’s entirely consistent that, in Wisconsin on Wednesday, he said that he’s “restoring the travel ban, suspending refugee admissions and keeping terrorists the hell out of our country.” …. Yet the pro-Palestinian activists, through their actions, would return the author of this ugliness to the White House.
Just goes to show charter schools cannot possibly be any better or worse than public schools. Why? Simply because it is impossible for any charter school to have a structure fundamentally different from any public school. (Just like no business has a structure fundamentally different from any other business, no matter how large or small.)
So, since structure generates behavior, the ranges of behavior charter schools can exhibit are the same ranges of behavior public schools can exhibit. In this case, it’s Capital City Public (sic) Charter School exhibiting unfair treatment of its people that then drives them to unionize. It’s the people forcing the charter school to change its behavior, perhaps after having awakened to the reality that public school employees did the same to public schools long ago—hence, today, NEA, AFT, etc. And it is why charter schools are redundant, and why they are a complete and total waste. And it is why we may take a bit of comfort in knowing big money funders of charter schools are on a fool’s errand.
Even so, the more charter schools unionize, the happier the unions. Then the happier the unions, the more the unions help sustain charter schools. Then the more unions help sustain charter schools, the more sustained destruction of public schools. Then more sustained destruction of public schools, the more sustained destruction of the public good and democracy.
That’s one small step for school, one giant leap for school-kind.
The billionaire want to be robber barons have been waging wars against labor unions since 1900. The narcissistic wealthiest 1% never gives up from generation to generation.
Traitor Trump is a perfect example of “them” except most of “them” try to avoid the media spotlight that the traitor is addicted to. Most of “them” prefer doing dirty in the dark.
Great news.
The Boston Teachers Union has secured bargaining rights for two charters recently. Neighborhood Charter School was one of the original charters; our former mayor Marty Walsh was on its board. Codman Academy Charter Public School, founded in 2001, voted last week for a union.
Al Shanker said to me many years ago, “we will unionize the charters.” Not sure he understood that billionaires like DeVos and Walton would fight the union.
Well, Shanker was right about a lot of things, but who could have imagined that the billionaires would attack the very cornerstone of democracy with their goal of destroying public education?