The battle at Chicago charters

CHICAGO--The latest front in the battle to unionize charter schools is taking place at the Chicago Math and Science Academy (CMSA) in the Rogers Park neighborhood.

Last June, two-thirds of the 41 staff members voted to join the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff (Chicago ACTS), an affiliate of the Illinois Federation of Teachers.

However, the CMSA board refuses to recognize the union and has taken retaliatory measures against union activists. In August, CMSA fired Rhoda Hartwell, a highly respected teacher who helped lead the union drive.

Hartwell's firing outraged the community, not least because she was eight months pregnant at the time. Just the previous spring, the school had given her a $1,500 performance bonus and renewed her contract. The union filed an unfair labor practices suit on her behalf. Hartwell said, "They are using me as a scapegoat to send a chilling message to the rest of the teachers."

The union accuses CMSA of violating the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act and the Illinois Charter School Act, which maintains that public school teachers can form a union when a simple majority of the workers signs union cards. School officials hired a notorious anti-union law firm to fight the union in court and claim that the teachers are exempt from the state laws. In January, the National Labor Relations Board ruled against CMSA, but it is appealing the decision.

The outcome of this struggle will have implications far beyond this small school. CMSA's claim that the union is invalid is based on its argument that charter schools are, in fact, private institutions, not public ones--therefore, they should not be held accountable to state laws governing public-sector union rights. However, charter schools like CMSA exist by siphoning off public resources from the public school system.

Since it opened in 2004, CMSA has received more than $23 million dollars in public funds. According to the Chicago Tribune, more than 80 percent of the school's annual $5 million operating budget comes from the Chicago Public Schools. The rest is made up of state and federal grant money and private fundraising. CMSA is run by the Concept Schools management organization, which also manages 27 other charter schools in the Midwest.

The vicious union-busting at CMSA takes place as a growing number of teachers at Chicago charter schools are voting to form unions. Currently, ACTS has organized eight of Chicago's 38 charter schools, with efforts underway at four more schools.

What is driving charter school teachers to unionize? The very conditions that charter school backers are always boasting about in the media--longer workdays, constant job insecurity, the lack of a voice in school decisions.

Art teacher Kate Ostler, who has taught at CMSA for three years, supports the union because she believes it will improve conditions for both teachers and kids. She told reporters:

They're trying to stall, they're trying to break us. It seems like a game to them, when all we're trying to do is empower ourselves and to create a better learning environment for the kids...I didn't like the climate of the school every year when it came to going in there on my own to talk to a principal who it seemed was very hostile to any kind of improvements that I wanted in my working conditions--improvements that would certainly benefit the learning conditions of my kids...All it's done is fueled our fire.

On March 17, unions and community groups held a protest and press conference outside a CMSA board meeting. Labor activists, clergy, Rogers Park residents and parents attended.

Building this kind of solidarity between parents, teachers, labor and the community is vital to win this fight--and for the other union drives that lie ahead.