In almost every corner of the world, women are either completely written out of school books, or they’re portrayed in stereotypical, subservient roles, a report says. What will it take to fix this?
ASPIRA’s back in the Daily News, and it’s not a proud moment for Management. CEO Alfredo Calderon has decided to ignore community demands that ASPIRA respect its employees right to organize, and to instead cancel six hours of student instruction time, one full day of parent-teacher conferences and who knows how much in taxpayer dollars to run a campaign of intimidation and misinformation.
How’s that working for him? Here’s the lede:
EXAMS ARE around the corner for city students, and nearly every teacher is squeezing in as much instructional time as humanly possible.
Not so much at Olney Charter High School, whose charter operator, ASPIRA Inc. of Pennsylvania, has pared back instruction and parent-teacher conferences so staff can attend mandatory meetings to hear what a union would mean for the North Philadelphia school.
It’s unclear what the cost would be to taxpayers.
Now is a good time to pause and remind you that you can still support our MoveOn petition to Calderon to “Support teachers’ right to organize a union without fear at ASPIRA Charters.” Click here.
The story continues:
Unidentified outside consultants will run the informational meetings - some union advocates describe them as an “anti-union” tactic - today, Wednesday and April 28. The aim is “to assist you in making an informed decision on this matter,” school board president Frederick Ramirez wrote in an email. The meetings were announced Thursday afternoon and leave Olney students with six hours less instruction time at a critical juncture in the school year: Keystone and advanced-placement exams will be held in early May.
“It’s obvious that the students’ best interest is not a priority for them [ASPIRA] in making this decision,” said music teacher Erina Pearlstein. “It’s straight-up unprofessional.”
In addition, the school had scheduled three parent-teacher conference days this week beginning Wednesday, which has been turned into a meeting day for staff. Now parents who expected to meet teachers that day will have to arrange to go in Thursday or Friday, teachers said.
Parent Jocabet Gutierrez, whose stepson Rodinso is in ninth grade, said the administration’s decision is wrongheaded.
“Before doing anything, they should think about the damage that they are doing to everyone else,” Gutierrez said in Spanish.
Olney does have a longer school day and a longer year than required by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, according to ASPIRA chief operating officer Thomas Darden. But algebra teacher Chris Bishop argued that “to take this time right now is especially inopportune and irresponsible.” Darden told the Daily News in an email yesterday: “We would have obviuosly [sic] preferred to aviod [sic] disruptions to instructional time but, as required by the NLRB [National Labor Relations Board] process, the only time these informational meetings could be scheduled was during work hours.”
The NLRB rules don’t say that, said one labor expert. Other options include holding meetings after school and paying staff to attend.
The meetings could have been made voluntary, “just like it’s voluntary for employees to go to a meeting of union organizers,” said Paul Clark, director of the School of Labor and Employment Relations at Penn State University. Clark said the purpose of these gatherings - also known as “captive-audience” meetings - is to persuade employees not to join the union. Such meetings are common “in the business world, where employers take a very aggressive stance in terms of fighting unions,” he said.
The AFL-CIO will launch on Tuesday a national immigration training plan, “We Rise!” (¡Adelante!). It is designed to reach, mobilize and organize immigrant workers in their workplaces and in their communities. The three-day kick-off event in Washington, D.C., will include trainings, workshops and strategy sessions designed to empower immigrants and their allies to lead campaigns that will enhance the rights of all workers. The event will include more than 200 union members, leaders and staff from 23 unions, and activists and community leaders from 26 states across the nation.
This practical, hands-on training will provide labor union members, activists and leaders with all the tools necessary to realize the promise of the recent executive actions on immigration to improve standards for all working people and strengthen communities where our members work and live. Participants will be trained to assist as many eligible workers as possible to gain rights on the job by applying for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) programs and to encourage qualified legal permanent residents to become U.S. citizens.
The specific objectives of the training sessions are:
Build a shared understanding of what immigration implementation means for workers and the labor movement.
Identify the strategies, tools and resources necessary for successful implementation.
Generate a field plan for immigration implementation.
Create a national network of engaged unions and community partners.
Launch the We Rise! Initiative.
Scheduled to join the AFL-CIO in the training is a diverse array of organizations, including: the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee, AFSCME, AFT, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, Clean Carwash Campaign, Dream Team Los Angeles, Education Austin, Farmworker Justice, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, Laborers (LIUNA), National Day Laborer Organizing Network, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Not1More, NPNA, the Orange County Labor Federation, PICO, Puente, the United Domestic Workers of America (UDW)/AFSCME Local 3930, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and United We Dream.
The National Priorities Project has put together a chart titled “Competing Visions” that looks at the 2016 budget proposals from President Obama, the House Budget Committee, the Senate Budget Committee and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Guess which ones align with what Americans say are their priorities?
Lawrence Mishel and Rep. Jan Schakowsky also write about the issue on the Economic Policy Institute blog.
A GROUP OF TEACHERS and staffers at Olney Charter High School yesterday filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board requesting the federal
agency conduct an election that would allow employees to become
unionized.
The filing included signed union authorization cards from Olney
employees and stated that the new union would be part of the Alliance of
Charter School Employees, an affiliate of the American Federation of
Teachers, according to the petition.
More than 70 percent of the 150-person staff signed on to the
effort, which may face a challenge from Olney’s charter operator, ASPIRA
Inc. of Pennsylvania.
The federal filing came one day after ASPIRA officials met, for the
first time, with Olney teachers who began the organizing effort three
years ago, organizers and teachers said. The ASPIRA officials - CEO
Alfredo Calderon, COO Thomas Darden and newly-hired superintendent
Andrea Gonzalez-Kerwin - told the teachers that they would not
voluntarily recognize the union, but would respect the results of an
election, participants said.
Darden did not respond to an email seeking comment.
An election could be held as soon as 30 days if no challenges are made by ASPIRA.
Calderon “said he would respect the wishes of the majority and I
asked him to recognize the union and he said no, he would respect the
outcome of an election,” said Hanako Franz, a freshman history teacher
who has been at Olney for four years.
English as a Second Language teacher Hannah Myers, who has been at
Olney for four years, said she believes Calderon and the others want to
drag out the process.
“It’s very hard for me to believe that he’s willing to work with us,”
she said. “If he really wanted to allocate resources to support our
community, they would voluntarily recognize the union, which has been
the majority for three years.”
The petition requests that a future union include “all full-time and
regular part-time professional and non-professional instructional and
student service support employees, including teachers, co-teachers,
psychologists” and other employees, according to the filing.
As Seattle prepares for the April launch of the highest minimum wage law in America, conservatives are warning that businesses are already shuttering under the pressure of higher labor costs and pointing to a recent report of a rash of restaurant closures as evidence. The problem is, the actual owners of those restaurants say that they’re not closing because of wages, and the city seems to be enjoying robust growth in that industry.
Hoffman Construction , a major road building and mining company is abandoning Wisconsin because of the Right to Work legislation just passed. According to Duluth News Tribune “Hoffman said Monday …
“It’s no coincidence that the rise of the middle class in America coincided in large part with the rise of unions—workers who organized together for higher wages, better working conditions, and the benefits and protections that most workers take for granted today. So it’s inexcusable that, over the past several years, just when middle-class families and workers need that kind of security the most, there’s been a sustained, coordinated assault on unions, led by powerful interests and their allies in government. So I’m deeply disappointed that a new anti-worker law in Wisconsin will weaken, rather than strengthen workers in the new economy. Wisconsin is a state built by labor, with a proud pro-worker past. So even as its governor claims victory over working Americans, I’d encourage him to try and score a victory for working Americans—by taking meaningful action to raise their wages and offer them the security of paid leave. That’s how you give hardworking middle-class families a fair shot in the new economy—not by stripping their rights in the workplace, but by offering them all the tools they need to get ahead.”—President Obama on Gov. Scott Walker’s signing of right-to-work legislation in Wisconsin