TruStone Financial workers enlist teachers’ help to fight union busting

November 3, 2015 by
OPEIU Local 12 members, officers and supporters joined informational picketing outside the grand opening of TruStone's Burnsville branch Nov. 6.

OPEIU Local 12 members, officers and supporters joined informational picketing outside the grand opening of TruStone’s Burnsville branch Nov. 6.

 

TruStone Financial has opened two new suburban branches in the last three months, but the credit union isn’t just upgrading its facilities. Workers accuse TruStone of using the relocation process as an opportunity to splinter their union.

TruStone opened a new branch in Burnsville last Monday, two days after shuttering its nearby Apple Valley location, where tellers, personal bankers, loan assistants and other employees were members of Office and Professional Employees Local 12.

Many of those employees now work at the Burnsville location, but according to TruStone, they’re no longer covered by Local 12’s contract.

Supporters stage informational picketing outside TruStone's Burnsville branch, which opened with non-union staff two days after TruStone closed a union facility in nearby Apple Valley.

Supporters stage informational picketing outside TruStone’s Burnsville branch, which opened with non-union staff two days after TruStone closed a union facility in nearby Apple Valley.

A similar scenario played out in August with branches in the Golden Valley-Plymouth area.

OPEIU Local 12’s Traci Murphy said TruStone made a “unilateral decision” to exclude workers at the new branches from the collective bargaining agreement – a decision that violates federal labor law, the union alleges in a complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board last week.

“We have had no attempts from our members to decertify the union or anything like that,” Murphy said. “TruStone is not bargaining in good faith – they haven’t been for a while – and they’re taking any opportunity they can to weaken the union whenever they see a chance.”

The allegations come as something of a surprise, considering TruStone’s membership base – people who work in education – includes thousands of union members and retirees.

TruStone was chartered in 1939 as the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Credit Union, and it became Teacher Federal Credit Union in 1988. According to its website, TruStone “welcomes members who work in, or are associated with, the education community,” in addition to “other groups near our branch locations.”

Local 12 has represented TruStone employees since 1979. The credit union, in fact, initiated the organizing process, according to Murphy, “because it was the teachers’ credit union and, as union members, they wanted to have interaction with employees who were also union members.”

In a written statement, TruStone said management “respects and has a long, positive working relationship with OPEIU Local 12” but disagrees with the local’s allegations, adding that it remains “the only teacher-based credit union in Minnesota with union employees.”

As the NLRB process drags on, Local 12 anticipates TruStone will continue the practice of closing union branches and opening non-union branches nearby – unless the credit union’s members push back.

Already, at least one teachers union, the St. Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28, has made members aware of Local 12’s allegations.

SPFT President Denise Rodriguez said she raised the issue at a membership meeting this fall. Local 28 does its banking through TruStone, and Rodriguez said leadership would continue to monitor the dispute.

“I definitely take it seriously when we have fellow union brothers and sisters come to us with concerns that there’s anti-union stuff going on at a place teachers are doing business with,” Rodriguez said. “I want members to have the information they need to make an informed decision if they want to continue to bank with TruStone.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

In new report, St. Paul teachers give ‘cookie-cutter’ policies a failing grade

August 7, 2015 by
Panelists at the SPFT event yesterday included (L to R) Michael Diedrich, Caitlin Reid, Zuki Ellis, Steve Marchese. SPFT political organizer Patrick Burke moderated.

Panelists at the East Side Freedom Library yesterday included (L to R) Michael Diedrich, Caitlin Reid, Zuki Ellis, Steve Marchese. SPFT political organizer Patrick Burke moderated.

 

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for improving under-performing schools, according to a report issued yesterday by the St. Paul Federation of Teachers. To achieve lasting improvement, district leaders must engage a school’s surrounding community and address the unique, underlying challenges in students’ neighborhoods, homes and lives.

That’s the conclusion policy researcher Michael Diedrich, author of the SPFT report, reached after a deep analysis of efforts to turn around one under-performing school in the St. Paul district, Frogtown’s Maxfield Elementary.

Diedrich discussed his report, “Capacity, Context and Community: Learning from School Improvement Policy at Maxfield Elementary,” at the East Side Freedom Library yesterday with teachers, union activists and two labor-endorsed candidates for school board, Zuki Ellis and Steve Marchese.

The panel also included Maxfield Elementary teacher Caitlin Reid, who began teaching at the school shortly before it received a three-year federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) to address “widespread misbehavior” resulting from “layers of dysfunction” inside and outside the building, according to Diedrich’s report.

The additional funding from 2010 to 2013 allowed Maxfield to add teachers and support professionals, invest in technology and extend students’ learning time. “Incidents of misbehavior dropped, and the responses to the remaining incidents were more thorough and constructive,” Diedrich’s report said.

With more support staff, students received more individual or small-group attention for everything from reinforcing a lesson to addressing misbehavior. But when the three-year grant ran out, Reid said, many of those support professionals disappeared.

“We saw a lot of cuts early on after the SIG,” she said. “The biggest cuts that affected us were some of the staff who did math and reading support.”

Now behavior issues are on the rise at Maxfield again, and the school has been designated a “priority school” under the Minnesota Measurements Rating system. The SIG, Diedrich said, “didn’t work very well for producing long-term change” at Maxfield.

Report author Michael Diedrich, a former English teacher at Brooklyn Center High School, is an education policy researcher.

Report author Michael Diedrich, a former English teacher at Brooklyn Center High School, is an education policy researcher.

Why not? And what can the district learn from ongoing attempts to turn Maxfield around? Panelists laid out three key responses during their discussion yesterday.

• Underlying factors behind a school’s performance matter, and policymakers who ignore those unique factors will most likely fail.

“We don’t want another cookie-cutter solution because it’s not going to work,” Reid said. “We’re not the same as every other school” that is under-performing.

Ellis said she hopes to change the St. Paul Public Schools’ approach if elected to the board. Rather than handing down policy directives without seeking input from “any parent or any teacher in that building,” Ellis said she would engage teachers, parents and community stakeholders “more thoughtfully and effectively,” asking them, “What do you need and how can we support that?”

• Engaging parents and involving the school’s community are critical to improving student performance.

“Public schools are meant to serve their communities,” Diedrich said. “One of the best ways we do that is by involving the community in making our school better.”

Reid said several Maxfield teachers have visited students’ homes as part of the union’s Parent Teacher Home Visit Project, and it’s led to greater parental investment in Maxfield’s programming. “We’re building that community of parents and teachers working together to address issues,” she said. “For me, it’s been career changing.”

• There are no quick fixes for under-performing schools, and sweeping, new policy directives every three or four years make it hard to tell what’s working and what’s not.

“That shifting of gears every three years, it’s hard on the staff, it’s hard on the kids, it’s hard on the communities,” Marchese said, adding that the school board should be “setting standards for what is expected across the system,” but giving school stakeholders flexibility in crafting – and sticking with – a plan to meet those standards.

Diedrich added: “Being able to have investment at the district level that supports you in building what works for your community is very, very meaningful. Just saying, ‘Now everybody gets an iPad!’ – that is the kind of thing that ends up being ephemeral.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

High court will hear case targeting public-sector unions

June 30, 2015 by

1024px-Supreme_Court_Front_DuskThe Supreme Court today announced it would hear arguments in a case challenging unions’ ability to collect fees from public-sector workers who choose not to join a union but, as members of the bargaining unit, enjoy equal access to benefits provided by the union contract.

Eliminating so-called “fair share fees,” ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court 37 years ago, is a top priority of the National Right to Work Committee and other right-wing legal groups that are bankrolling an assault on workers’ collective bargaining rights in the court system.

Unions pledged a vigorous defense of the fair-share structure, which empowers teachers and other public-sector employees to form strong unions for a collective voice on the job – while also ensuring no worker contributes to the union’s political activities without giving consent.

“It’s extremely frustrating that at a time when corporations and the super-rich have unprecedented power, the court would agree to take up a case that could further undercut working Americans,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson said.

The case stems from California, where Orange County teacher Rebecca Friedrichs sued the California Teachers Association for collecting fair share fees. The conservative, Washington-based Center for Individual Rights picked up Friedrichs’ legal fees and put the case on a fast track for the Supreme Court, arguing that forcing her to pay for union representation she doesn’t want amounts to “forced speech.”

The Supreme Court’s most conservative justices, led by Samuel Alito, have signaled more than once that they are sympathetic to 1st Amendment arguments to overturn the 1977 decision, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which deemed fair share fees constitutional.

But union members like Kimberly Colbert, a teacher from St. Paul, warned overturning Abood would stifle workers’ speech – not support it – because public sector unions are required to represent all employees in a bargaining unit, regardless of whether or not they pay dues.

“When educators come together, we can speak with the district about class size, about adequate staffing, about the need for counselors, nurses, media specialists and librarians in schools. And we can advocate for better practices that serve our kids,” Colbert said. “With that collective voice, we can have conversations with the district that we probably wouldn’t be able to have otherwise – and do it while engaging our communities, our parents and our students.”

The court will hear arguments in Friedrich v. CTA during its upcoming term, which begins in October.

“While we hope that the court will not over turn their previous decision in Abood, an unfavorable ruling will not stop Minnesota’s labor movement from growing,” Knutson said. “Workers across our state and nation continue to stand up for their rights; we will continue to stand with them and their organizing efforts.”

Denise Specht, president of Education Minnesota, agreed.

“This will be a fiercely argued case and no one knows how it will be decided, or when, but I can promise one thing,” Specht said. “No matter what happens, the educators of Education Minnesota will continue to speak out for our schools, our students, our educators and the future of our state.”

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East Side Freedom Library plans April film screenings, lectures

April 1, 2015 by

TwoMillionVAxProgramming at the East Side Freedom Library this month includes film screenings, discussions and a presentation on social justice.

All events at the nonprofit, independent library, located at 1105 Greenbrier St. in St. Paul, are free and open to the public. For more information go to the library’s website.

• Filmmaker John DeGraaf will appear at an April 8 screening of his film “The Great Vacation Squeeze,” which looks into why the U.S. is one of only five countries that does not legally mandate vacations – and what workers can do to change that fact.

DeGraaf, who also directed “Labor’s Turning Point,” an acclaimed documentary about the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strike, will join a discussion after the 7 p.m. screening.

• The St. Paul Federation of Teachers will co-sponsor a screening and discussion of the film “2 Million Minutes” at the library April 14, starting at 6 p.m. The title refers to the amount of time in a student’s career between the end of eighth grade and high-school graduation, and the film considers how that time is spent in three countries, the U.S., India and China.

• Dr. Artika Tyner, a professor of law and public policy at the University of St. Thomas, will give a presentation April 24 at 7 p.m. entitled “Planting People & Growing Justice in Response to the Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline.”

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , , ,

Standardized testing the subject of two events this month

March 2, 2015 by

Broken PencilTwo public events in March – a film screening and a lecture – will consider the wisdom of increasing the use of standardized testing in public education.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28 will co-sponsor a screening of “Standardized” at 6 p.m. March 10 at the East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St. The free event is part of the library’s ongoing series of education-focused films and discussions.

The film features education experts offering their opinions on standardized testing. It’s subtitled: “Lies, Money and Civil Rights: How Testing if Ruining Public Education.”

The discussion will continue March 21, when Seattle high school history teacher and Macalester College graduate Jesse Hagopian offers a public presentation on his essay “The Testocracy versus the Educational Spring” at 7 p.m. in the college’s John B. Davis Auditorium, located at the southwest corner of Snelling and Grand Avenues.

9781608463923_0Hagopian edited “More than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing,” a collection of essays by scholars, teachers, administrators, students and parents, published last year by Haymarket Press.

As a union activist, Hagopian was among the leaders of a historic 2013 boycott of the MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) test in Seattle. In 2013 he was named the national “Secondary School Teacher of the Year” by the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences.

He writes frequently for nationally circulated journals, and posts a widely read blog, I Am an Educator.

The presentation is free and open to the public.

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Turnover Problems: Union staff want charter-school board to address ‘revolving door’

February 16, 2015 by
Teachers and staff wore matching blue shirts with gold stars on the back and the text "because our WORKING environment is the students' LEARNING environment" to the CSE board's Jan. 21 meeting. (submitted photo)

Teachers and staff wore matching blue shirts with gold stars on the back and the text “because our WORKING environment is the students’ LEARNING environment” to the CSE board’s Jan. 21 meeting. (submitted photo)

After another third-grade teacher at the Community School of Excellence in St. Paul “got fed up with some of the disrespect” and resigned last October, Eric Johnson saw the number of students in his classroom swell from 22 to 31.

“The third-grade teachers, we agreed we’d absorb the kids,” Johnson said. “It’s better than the alternative – getting somebody who’s not the best teacher who we have to help teach our curriculum.

“But it’s not in the best interest of the kids at all.”

Johnson, vice president of the Education Minnesota Federation of Charter School Employees, was among roughly 30 staff members who showed up at a Jan. 21 meeting of CSE’s board of directors to register their concerns about the high rate of staff turnover at CSE, a 900-student school, located at Rice Street and Rose Avenue, that focuses on Hmong language and culture.

After a vote held last June, CSE teachers and support staff became the just the second group of charter school employees to unionize in Minnesota history. Negotiations on a first contract remain in the preliminary stages.

But by speaking up en masse about the turnover problem, Johnsons said, CSE staff put administrators on notice that they remain committed to winning a voice on the job.

Speaking up at the meeting “took guts,” Johnson said. “Especially with some of the intimidation that’s going on at the school, it’s hard to get people to participate in this stuff because of that track record of the past.”

Fourth-grade teacher Bong Xiong, second from right, was active in efforts to organize a staff union at CSE. He was fired over the winter break.

Fourth-grade teacher Bong Xiong, second from right, was active in efforts to organize a staff union at CSE. He was fired over the winter break.

‘A revolving door’

Most of the staff turnover at CSE this school year has been voluntary. Staff members and parents at the Jan. 21 meeting urged board members to investigate why the school has trouble retraining – and attracting – qualified staff.

Meanwhile, the turnover has continued. Two days after the board meeting, two middle-school teachers resigned, bringing the total number of resignations this school year to seven, Johnson said.

Fourth-grade teacher Bong Xiong, who was active in efforts to form a staff union at CSE, was terminated over the winter break.

All eight former staff members were “qualified people that a school like this really needs to have around to improve the achievement of the students,” Johnson said.

But high turnover rates “are not unusual for this school – and that’s the problem,” he added. “It’s a revolving door.”

Why? An outside investigation, initiated by state regulators in 2013, provided a glimpse of the work environment at CSE. In addition to confirming reports of financial and procedural mismanagement at the school, the investigation revealed an incident in which Superintendent Mo Chang disclosed the identity of a teacher who reported to authorities suspicions of child abuse at home.

Staff members described a culture of fear within the school, plagued by instability and poor communication, as a motivating factor in their successful organizing campaign last year.

Recruiting qualified applicants to CSE has been difficult as well, Johnson said.

“If a qualified candidate is going to go out on a limb with a charter school, they want to see what’s going on at the school,” he said. “I would imagine some of these questionable ethical activities come up on a Google search, and I would assume that has something to do with why we’re having a hard time recruiting qualified candidates.”

Kids suffer

Whatever its cause, the high level of staff turnover at CSE isn’t good for the students’ learning environment, teachers, parents and community members told board members. They asked board members to look for answers to the school’s turnover problems by reviewing exit interviews conducted with outgoing staff.

“We know for a fact some of the people who have left have done exit interviews” with administrators, Johnson said. “We’re asking the board to do their own inquiry, without an agenda, of why so many people working here are less than happy.

“Finding the answer to this problem isn’t tough. It’s what are you going to do with the answers you find? That’s the tough part.”

Filed Under: Union Events Tagged With: , , , ,

‘Moral Mondays’ leader joins March for Equity in Minneapolis

August 18, 2014 by
Rev. Dr. William Barber II speaks to a crowd of more than 150 people in Peavey Plaza before the Minneapolis teachers' March for Equity.

Rev. Dr. William Barber II speaks to a crowd of more than 150 people in Minneapolis.

A leading progressive voice from the South delivered a spirited, Saturday-morning sermon downtown Minneapolis Aug. 16, making a scripture-based appeal for social justice and leading a “March for Equity” along Nicollet Mall.

“We have a tale of two cities, whether it’s up north or down south,” Rev. Dr. William Barber II told a crowd of more than 150 people gathered in Peavey Plaza. “In America we are both the richest and the poorest nation in the world, and it is a scar on our moral integrity.”

Activists march down Nicollet Mall after Barber's speech. The March for Equity was organized by the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers.

Activists march down Nicollet Mall after Barber’s speech. The March for Equity was organized by the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers.

Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, has staked a progressive claim to the moral high ground in his Bible Belt state. With an act of civil disobedience at the state’s legislative building in April 2013, he sparked the “Moral Mondays” campaign, a grassroots revival of anti-poverty, pro-worker activism that has spilled into neighboring states.

“These are not just policy issues,” Barber said. “It’s not a left-versus-right debate or a conservative-versus-liberal debate. These issues form the centerpiece of our faith, the very soul of our democracy.”

Since Barber’s initial arrest – he was leading a protest of efforts to restrict voting rights in North Carolina – the “Moral Mondays” campaign has grown, drawing support from a diverse group of religious and community groups.

Thousands of people have joined weekly demonstrations in Raleigh, and more than 900 have been arrested for protesting a wide range of conservative bills passed by the Legislature, including cuts to unemployment benefits, health care and public education.

Cutting programs that lift people out of poverty, Barber said, goes against the teachings of Christ.

“If you’re going to put your hand on a Bible and swear yourself into public office, you ought to know what’s in that Bible,” he said. While many right-wing lawmakers focus on divisive issues, like gay marriage or prayer in schools, he added, “none of them trump the scripture that says you must love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

“When we put the poor at the center – and not the margins – of our agenda, that’s what equity looks like,” Barber said.

The March for Equity was part of a weekend-long series of events organized by the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers as a kickoff to the 2014 election push. Union members will work to elect candidates who support not only public schools, but policies that lift families out of poverty, so that students in their classes are in a better position to learn.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers members at the March for Equity included Kimberly Colbert, Leah Lindemann, President Denise Rodriguez, Rebecca Bauer, Sue Snyder, Erica Schatzlein, Nick Faber and Ellen Olsen.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers members at the March for Equity included Kimberly Colbert, Leah Lindemann, President Denise Rodriguez, Rebecca Bauer, Sue Snyder, Erica Schatzlein, Nick Faber and Ellen Olsen.

It’s a mission – and a message – the teachers’ union in St. Paul carried into its contract campaign earlier this year. Several members of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers joined the march in Minneapolis.

“Our families and students do better if parents are earning a living wage, if they have access to health care and affordable housing,” SPFT member Sue Snyder said. “We need to come together for all people – for students, for families, for the community – so we can all do better.”

Barber, SPFT member Ellen Olsen added, is a progressive “rock star” whose Moral Mondays campaign embodies the type of organizing work teachers are aiming to do.

“This is not a special interest thing,” Olsen said. “They have been building bridges and community relationships for a long time. And that’s what we need to do, that’s what we’ve been trying to do in St. Paul.

“We’ve got so many different people working on different things – we’ve got to come together. That’s where the power is, in numbers.”

Filed Under: Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Deal with Postal Service lands Staples on labor’s ‘Don’t Buy’ list

June 3, 2014 by
St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper speaks at the Stop Staples rally in Roseville.

St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper spoke at the Stop Staples rally in Roseville on a nationwide day of action April 24.

staples-dont-buyThe boycott of Staples is official. The AFL-CIO last Friday approved the American Postal Workers Union’s request to add the office-supply retailer to the national federation’s list of endorsed boycotts.

The APWU and other postal unions launched the “Stop Staples” campaign earlier this year, after the U.S. Postal Service announced plans to expand a pilot program placing service counters inside Staples stores.

The counters are not staffed by sworn USPS employees, but by Staples employees who, when working full time, earn about $18,000 per year – and receive little training on how to handle the mail.

Postal Workers, Letter Carriers and other union members at a rally outside Staples in Roseville, part of a nationwide day of action April 24, decried the pilot program as a privatization scheme that threatens both middle-class jobs and the security of the mail.

With the recently approved boycott, postal unions are taking the “Stop Staples” campaign to the next level.

“Our brothers and sisters in the labor movement are key allies in this struggle and we greatly appreciate their support,” APWU President Mark Dimondstein said. “The ‘Don’t Buy Staples’ campaign is an essential component of the movement to stop the dirty deal between the U.S. Postal Service and Staples.”

St. Paul Area APWU President Todd Elkerton said Staples is already feeling the heat.

“In the Boston Globe on May 21, in an article titled ‘Postal union targets Staples over mail service program,’ a Staples executive is quoted as saying that Staples is not interested in getting in the middle of a fight between the post office and its union,” Elkerton said. “It goes on to say this executive acknowledges that it could become a problem if more unions backed the postal workers.”

All four unions representing USPS workers – the APWU, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Postal Mail Handlers and the Rural Letter Carriers – have backed the “Stop Staples” campaign, and the AFL-CIO’s boycott will tap into the consumer power of 56 nationwide unions representing 12.5 million members.

Teachers, in particular, will play a key role in the boycott, Elkerton hoped. According to some estimates, about one-third of Staples’ revenue comes from the sale of school supplies.

The American Federation of Teachers, which represents 1.5 million teachers nationwide, is expected to consider a ‘Don’t Buy Staples’ resolution at its national convention in July.

“We greatly appreciate the expressions of solidarity from the teachers’ unions,” Elkerton said. “Educators and all union members will be key allies in this campaign.”

web.staples-staples

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

St. Paul Schools, teachers reach tentative agreement

February 21, 2014 by
St. Paul Federation of Teachers President Mary Cathryn Ricker (left) and Superintendent Valeria Silva reviewed the contents of the tentative agreement with media members Feb. 24.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers President Mary Cathryn Ricker (left) and Superintendent Valeria Silva reviewed the contents of the tentative agreement with media members Feb. 24.

Three days before members of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers were scheduled to take a strike-authorization vote, negotiators for the school district and the teachers’ union reached a tentative agreement on a two-year contract that will run through the 2014-15 school year.

Teachers planned a ratification vote for March 4, and the union’s executive board has recommended members vote to approve.

The tentative agreement was the result of a 24-hour mediation session between the two sides that began Feb. 20. Joined by a state mediator and some members of the Board of Education, negotiators worked through the night.

After months of frustrating talks, SPFT President Mary Cathryn Ricker said, “the momentum was there the entire night, the engagement was there.”

As a result, instead of voting on whether to authorize a strike Feb. 24, teachers held a membership meeting to review details of the agreement, which Ricker said was an important step in efforts to “reclaim the school experiences that have been lost due to tightened budgets or encroaching standardized tests.”

Both the union and school administrators touted “key provisions” of the contract – and related agreements reached in bargaining – that, they say, will make progress on the teachers’ core bargaining principles. Known as “The Schools St. Paul Children Deserve,” the teachers’ guiding principles were developed after intensive outreach to parents and community stakeholders.

Chief among those priorities was lowering class sizes in the district. The tentative agreement will deliver more consistency and predictability in class sizes, while making the formula for calculating class-size restrictions more transparent, Ricker said.

The agreement also sets lower limits for class sizes in the 30 schools with the highest levels of poverty in the district, to “make sure resources get where students need them to go,” Ricker said.

The SPFT also made professional support staffing – media specialists, nurses, school counselors and social workers – a priority in negotiations, and the district committed to hiring 42 professionals in those fields.

Language in the agreement will reduce in-class time spent on standardized testing and test preparation activities over the next two years – another union priority – and calls for a “review of existing assessments for cultural relevance,” Ricker said.

Additionally, the district agreed to spend at least $6 million per school year to maintain and expand its pre-kindergarten programs for 4-year-olds.

Teachers made pre-K access a rallying cry at mobilization events in the weeks leading up to the strike vote, but SPPS Superintendent Valeria Silva said the district was always on board with increasing early-education investments. “We both needed to see it, and we got it into a wonderful agreement between the district and the union,” Silva said.

Ricker agreed the tentative agreement was a win-win for teachers and administrators. “You can’t see where the union’s proposal ends and the district’s proposal begins anymore because it’s such a blend,” she said.

The tentative agreement calls for salary and benefit increases amounting to 8.6 percent over the course of two years. Silva said the district remained “committed to providing a really competitive wage” to attract and retain teachers.

By scheduling a strike vote, the teachers’ union may have hastened the pace of negotiations. “I think maybe we were able to listen to each other a little better than before,” Silva acknowledged.

Still, at a press conference to review details of the agreement, the superintendent, union president and school board chair gave no indication the threat of strike had poisoned the labor-management relationship.

“We are nationally known for working well with our unions,” Board Chair Mary Doran said, “and we want to get back to that.”

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Education Summit leaves teachers, parents on the outside looking in

February 6, 2014 by
Jenny Warner, a parent of two students in the Minneapolis Public Schools, joins the demonstration outside the Education Summit.

Jenny Warner, a parent of two students in the Minneapolis Public Schools, joins the demonstration outside the Education Summit.

Parents, students and other activists demonstrated this morning outside a hotel downtown St. Paul, site of a business-backed conference on education reform that featured Michelle Rhee, a prominent national voice for weakening the influence of teachers and their unions.

Not surprisingly, presenters at the Education Summit, sponsored by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, did not include representatives of any local teacher or parent groups. And the event’s timing – a Thursday in January – didn’t do much to make teachers feel welcome.

Demonstrators outside took notice.

“It’s obviously intentional,” Minneapolis parent Jenny Warner said. “I’m not a teacher, and it was prohibitive for me to get here. It’s obvious teachers and parents are not invited to take part in this discussion.”

Demonstrators unfurled a banner calling on the public to “boycott corporate education reform.” They identified increased testing and private-school vouchers as elements of that reform movement they oppose.

“I am against the standardized testing, high-stakes testing, corporate education reform movement,” Warner said. “I believe students are more than their test scores. Their success can’t always be measured by a standardized test.

“I know what Michelle Rhee is selling, and I don’t want our community to buy into it.”

Through the advocacy group StudentsFirst, Rhee is “promoting the firing and de-unionization of teachers as a national solution,” according to a preview of the summit authored by former Minneapolis teacher Sarah Lahm for the think tank Minnesota 2020.

Lahm attended the summit and provided live updates on Twitter.

“We have a lot of people who came today, even though it’s 12 degrees below out here,” Augsburg student Dua Saleh said. “We’ve got a lot of parents, students and local people – the people who should be in charge of what our children are being taught, not the corporations.”

web.EdReform3

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