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UTLA says it has proof Alliance officials are blocking union efforts

Craig Clough | April 23, 2015



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UTLAThe LA teachers union, UTLA, said today it intends to release documents to support its claim that administrators at Alliance College-Ready Public Schools have worked to block a recent unionization movement of Alliance educators.

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl, Assembly Member Mike Gipson, the executive secretary-treasurer of the LA County Federation of Labor, Rusty Hicks, and teachers from Alliance schools are scheduled to hold a press conference at 6:30 am tomorrow outside Alliance Susan & Eric Smidt Technology High School to release the documents, according to a UTLA press release.

“We are disappointed that Alliance would deliberately claim to their educators and parents that they would not pressure teachers on the one hand and then on the other hand run an intentionally divisive anti-union campaign against us” Oliver Aguirre, English teacher at Alliance Susan & Eric Smidt Technology High School, said in a statement.

On April 7, UTLA filed a complaint with the Public Employment Relations Board, saying administrators were interfering with the union’s right to organize teachers in the 26 Alliance schools.

“The educators at Alliance are trying to assert a democratically protected right to organize a union, and the Alliance management is interfering in an illegal way,” Union president Alex Caputo-Pearl told LA School Report earlier this month.

A group of 67 teachers announced in March their intention to organize Alliance’s teachers to join ULTA, which would require approval from 50 percent-plus-one of the charter’s teachers, a group of about 600.

Alliance officials have argued that they are simply countering UTLA’s claims and, in turn, said that UTLA is harassing teachers in its effort to unionize them.

“We’ve heard from a number of teachers that they feel harassed by UTLA’s communications tactics to strong arm them to join a union that they have no interest in being a part of,” Alliance said in a statement earlier this month.

 

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