New charter school unions spring up coast to coast

Charter school educators across the country are staring down legal appeals, "boss" campaigns and winter weather to exercise their right to form a union. Despite challenges coming from employers in both the public and private sectors, three new charter school unions have formed in recent days.

On Feb. 7, in the shadow of Michigan's recent passage of so-called right-to-work legislation, teachers and counselors on the four campuses of Cesar Chavez Academy won an election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board after a dramatic five-month campaign. The employees filed a petition with the labor board in Detroit on a rainy day in December; they returned to their campus to join hundreds of rain-soaked parents and community members demonstrating in support of the union drive.

The rally and media coverage served notice to the charter holder, the Leona Group, that employees in Detroit's biggest charter district were determined to unionize. The Leona Group is one of the nation's largest for-profit educational management companies. Cesar Chavez Academy is the second-largest charter school district in Michigan.

Throughout the drive, Detroit community members and parents had been visible, appearing at charter board meetings with a growing number of teachers who wore union buttons. State Rep. Rashida Tlaib was an articulate early supporter, along with the Rev. David Bullock, who is president of both the Highland Park NAACP and the Detroit chapter of Rainbow PUSH, and parents from Mujeres Mejorando Educacion (Women Improving Education).

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