Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/1509126
Charter Schools Organize to Win Supporting chapter leaders as they build power for educators and students By Julian Peeples " W E H A V E A L O T on our plates holding charter operators accountable," says Kyna Collins, honors English teacher at El Camino Real Charter High School in Los Angeles and member of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA). "It's an everyday struggle for us." Across the state, educators in charter schools are organizing to build power and exercising their voices to advocate for their students and themselves — and with the collective strength of a union. At one time a rarity, charter educators are increasingly overcoming union-busting practices to win unions, negotiate their wages and working conditions, and use their collective power to fight for their students. "Organizing, bargaining and surfacing important issues is how we show our members their voices matter," says Jeremy Zuniga, former government and economics teacher at Oscar De La Hoya Animo Charter in East Los Angeles and president of Asociación de Maestros Unidos (and current executive director of South Bay Teachers United). In the past year alone, some of CTA's most inspiring victories were accomplished by charter school locals that didn't exist as recently as a decade ago: High Tech Education Collective (HTEC) members won their first contract ever after winning their union last year, while United PCS built power and won a major victory in their second-ever bargain that will help attract and retain the educators their students depend on and deserve. e victories won by these educators are even more impres- sive due to the "mega waiver" that exempts charter schools from most of education code, which requires local charter unions to negotiate for most of the basic rights guaranteed to all employees of traditional K–12 school districts. United PCS President Mary Gardner, second from left, and members won their second-ever bargain in Spring. 39 O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 3 A