Columbus Teachers Union Strike Wins Big for Students, Parents, and Teachers

 From Common Dreams:

Teachers Union in Ohio Went on Strike for Students—and Won

"More than 4,000 of our members stood strong on the picket line, our community joined the fight, and we won victories" on multiple issues, said a Columbus Education Association spokesperson.

KENNY STANCIL

August 29, 2022

Students, teachers, and support staff in Ohio's largest school district returned to the classroom on Monday after the Columbus Education Association won a new contract and ended its weeklong strike.

"Students... are the most important investment in this entire nation."

Gathered at the local minor league ballpark on Sunday, CEA members voted 71% to 29% to approve a three-year contract with Columbus City Schools that satisfies most of the union's demands, which revolved around improving students' learning environments and opportunities.

"We are so excited to get back to where we belong—our classrooms—doing what we do best: educating our students and shaping the future of our great city," CEA spokesperson Regina Fuentes said at a press conference.

As The Columbus Dispatch reported, the agreement includes:

• A contractual guarantee that all student learning areas will be climate controlled no later than the start of the 2025-2026 school year, including installation of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning in buildings currently without HVAC, and in buildings that currently only have partial HVAC;
• Reductions in class size caps in all grade bands, lowering the number of students in every classroom by two over the course of the contract; and
• The first-ever limitations on the numbers of buildings assigned to each elementary art, music, and physical education teachers, with scheduling intended for one specialist per subject area per building.

"It is important to remember that just ten short days ago, at our last bargaining session before the strike, CEA was told 'no' on guaranteed air conditioning and heat in every building, 'no' on class size reductions in middle and high schools, and 'no' on improved access to art, music, and P.E. at the elementary level," said Fuentes.

"More than 4,000 of our members stood strong on the picket line, our community joined the fight, and we won victories on all three of these issues," she noted.

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In addition to much-needed improvements to learning and working conditions, the roughly 4,500-member union—representing teachers, librarians, nurses, counselors, and other education professionals—was able to secure better pay and benefits.

According to The Columbus Dispatch, the new contract includes:

• A 4% raise each year of the three-year agreement;
• The first-ever contractual limitation on the number of CEA positions that can be outsourced to out-of-town corporations, "thereby ensuring that our students are educated by experienced professionals from our local community"; and
• A paid parental leave program for teachers.

The new pact is the result of CEA's first strike since 1975. A whopping 94% of members voted to authorize a work stoppage last Sunday after monthslong negotiations with Columbus City Schools, which the union accused of "walk[ing] away from the bargaining table," collapsed just ahead of the start of the fall semester.

The district's 47,000-plus students spent the first three days of the academic year online. The school board held a special meeting to ratify the contract at 8:00 a.m. CT on Monday, about 30 minutes after students at some schools began in-person instruction.

On Sunday, Fuentes stressed that teachers and support staff nationwide are "tired of settling for the status quo." She expressed hope that CEA's victory will motivate other workers and communities to take action to defend public education from the longstanding and intensifying attacks that have led to increasingly understaffed and ill-equipped classrooms.

"They need to put more of an investment in our students because they are the most important investment in this entire nation," said Fuentes. "It starts here but we want to keep it going."

Chicago Teachers Vote to Stand Up for Children, Parents, and Themselves

EDUCATORS VOTE YES Chicago Teachers Vote Overwhelming for Strike Authorization as Contract Negotiations Continue; Union to use leverage to fight for smaller class sizes CHICAGO – Today, the Chicago Teachers Union revealed nearly 90 percent of its eligible members voted to give their labor organization the authority to call a strike should contract negotiations reach an impasse. The Union has been in negotiations with the Chicago Public School system since November 2011. A new state law requires a 75 percent of all eligible CTU voters to vote in the affirmative in order to provide strike authorization. Although both CTU and CPS are in the fact-finding stage of negotiations, the Union pointed out that the independent review will only provide recommendations on a small number of contract concerns. Public school educators say they are fighting for smaller class sizes, art, music, world language and physical education classes for students, and fair compensation for being asked to work under more difficult guidelines as determined by CPS. Armed with strike authorization, teachers, paraprofessionals and clinicians say they believe this will give them more leverage at the bargaining table going forward. Should a strike become necessary, the Union’s 800-member House of Delegates will set the date for a work stoppage. The three-day vote tally showed: Category Number ÷ Membership = % Total Membership 26,502 ÷ 26,502 = 100.00% Members Voting “YES” 23,780 ÷ 26,502 = 89.73% Members Voting “NO” 482 ÷ 26,502 = 1.82% Members Casting Votes 24,262 ÷ 26,502 = 91.55% Members Not Voting (includes 494 spoiled ballots) 2,240 ÷ 26,502 = 8.45% Day Daily Votes* Number ÷ Vote Count = % 1 Total Votes 19,614 ÷ 19,614 = 100.00% “YES” Votes 19,235 ÷ 19,614 = 98.01% “NO” Votes 379 ÷ 19,614 = 1.93% 2 Total Votes   2,108  ÷ 2,108 = 100.00% “YES” Votes  2,060  ÷ 2,108 = 97.72% “NO” Votes     48  ÷ 2,108 = 2.28% 3 Total Votes    392 ÷    392 = 100.00% “YES” Votes    370 ÷    392 = 94.39% “NO” Votes     22 ÷    392 = 5.61% S Total Votes  2,148 ÷  2,148 = 100.00% “YES” Votes  2,115 ÷  2,148 = 98.46% “NO” Votes     33 ÷  2,148 = 1.54% Total Votes 24,262 ÷ 24,262 = 100.00% “YES” Votes 23,780 ÷ 24,262 = 98.01% “NO” Votes    482 ÷ 24,262 = 1.99% * Daily Votes were totaled each day for members on the roster for each school. "S" refers to Supplemental ballots, which are those cast by employees voting at a site where they do not appear on the roster (e.g. school social workers or nurses, who service multiple schools). These votes are tallied separately. CTU President Karen GJ Lewis, NBCT, said the following during a news conference today: “We have called you here today to announce the results of the strike authorization vote held last week. The results are not a win. They are an indictment on the state of the relationship between the ‘management’ of CPS and its largest labor force, members of the Chicago Teachers Union. It is also an indictment of the outside groups that seek to destroy the real work being done by Chicago’s teachers, paraprofessionals, and clinicians. “We do not understand why Democrats for Education Reform, Education Reform Now and other organizations continue to stand on the backs of our children and profess to care about them when they ignore the harsh realities of their lives. And while our members work in schools that are under-resourced, under-staffed and under-appreciated, they have toiled in silence long enough while the mayors of this city have exerted control, shut down schools, and handed over facilities to their well-connected friends. “The problems with our schools will not be answered by overpaid outside consultants or billionaire education dilettantes but rather by the people who actually work in our schools with our children in full partnership with the District. For some reason, this administration has behaved as if the Union was some out-of-touch bureaucracy only speaking for ourselves. But the dominant narrative among the so-called Ed Reformers in concert with city’s business fathers and mothers has been that the reason why CPS is in such bad shape is that its teachers are incompetent. “This new leadership of the CTU were all classroom teachers and paraprofessionals two years ago. We have the pulse of our members. We listened to what they had to say. And we made a plan using the tools and the resources we have. That’s what teachers do. We analyzed the data and adjusted our plans. But all along, we had the feedback of the members in our schools. While the chaos on Clark Street continues, our members—intent on being heard—were loud, clear, and serious. “We want a contract that gives Chicago’s students the schools they deserve. So we call on CPS to take the process seriously and negotiate with us in good faith and with an eye on the real prize: Our children.”

Chicago Charter School Teachers Vote to Join Union

From WGN:

There's another first in Chicago's decade-plus history of charter schools: a teachers' union.

After a year of meetings, teachers at three campuses of Civatas Schools' Chicago International Charter Schools filed notice Friday with state and local officials that they had voted to form a union.

The teachers at three campuses of the Civatas Schools' Chicago International Charter Schools have been meeting for nearly a year to consider forming a union and recently the majority of teachers voted to support the move.

While the charter school has 12 campuses in Chicago, the vote only affects teachers at three locations: Wrightwood, 8130 S. California Ave.; Northtown Academy, 3900 W. Peterson Ave.; and Ralph Ellison, 1817 W. 80th St. The three campuses have about 115 teachers, the majority of whom voted to join, officials said.

Emily Mueller, a high school Spanish teacher at Northtown Academy, said she was one of the first teachers to begin working to form a union in the living room of one of the teachers nearly a year ago.

Mueller said that among the main reasons teachers wanted union representation was for job security. Currently, teachers at most charter schools are given yearly contracts that must be renewed spring. Similarly, pay raises for the following year are often determined on a case by case basis at the school, Mueller said.

She said that teachers wanted more of a say in the number of classes they teach as well as better benefits.

"We have felt that we needed more of a voice with decisions being made at our school, some teachers felt they wanted more job security," Mueller said. "The administration has an obligation to sit down with us and bargain collectively."

Officials said that three-quarters of the teaching staff signed documents to be the first unit represented by the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff, an affiliate of the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers. . . .

British Teachers Plan to End National Testing

While the spineless AFT and NEA join the Business Roundtable hustle to up the testing ante and thus continue the push to turn American children in helpless drones, the British teachers' unions have made it clear the child abuse through testing is about to come to a screeching halt in Britain. Thank God for professional teachers' organizations somewhere with guts. From The Guardian:

Polly Curtis, education editor
Thursday 26 March 2009

Teachers are threatening to bring the Sats system in England to a halt by boycotting next year's tests.

Two of the biggest education unions will ask their members to refuse to take part in the tests, which they say have become "unacceptable for the future of children's education".

It is a significant escalation in the teaching profession's opposition to the testing regime, and comes after ministers scrapped the tests for 14-year-olds last year. The two unions, representing more than 300,000 teachers and heads, say they will conduct this year's tests of all seven and 11-year-olds in May only on condition that they will be the last.

The National Union of Teachers will put the plans to its annual conference over Easter, while the National Association of Head Teachers will consider an identical plan at its conference at the end of April. Both organisations say the tests have damaged primary education and put children under unnecessary stress.

Mick Brookes, the NAHT general secretary, said: "Testing narrows the curriculum and makes learning shallow, because the tests are simply regurgitative. Then the results are published in league tables, and schools in the toughest areas, where you've got hardest to teach children, are ridiculed on an annual basis. There is high stress for children; some will already be spending up to 10 hours a week rehearsing these tests. It's a complete waste of time. It is unconscionable that we should simply stand by and allow the educational experience of children to be blighted."

Christine Blower, the NUT's acting general secretary, said: "Primary schools' patience in enduring the damage caused by the tests has been stretched to the limit, and beyond. Our deadline for the end of Sats by 2010 is reasonable, and our alternative is one that will enhance teaching and learning. Above all else, the government needs to understand that this year's national curriculum tests will be the last. . . . .