09/10/24 Newsletter: What Does it Take to Build a Union?

UNION 101

We think it’s important to go back from time to time and share a refresher course on the basics of a union. For those who are new to our district, this might be new information, but for those of us active in ACE, this is what we’ve been doing for the past few years.

What Does it Take to Build a Union?

1. Organizing Committee

A group of educator employees decides that a union is necessary and forms an Organizing Committee: Local educators who will invite their fellow educators to sign the Union Petition.

2. Educator Choice

All employees in the educator employee group can decide whether to sign a petition as their vote vs. a different employee group or no representation.
This requires many conversations and responses to questions.
- The Organizing Committee keeps the signatures confidential.
- Those who sign do not become Union members – membership is a separate choice!

3. Majority Support

When a majority of employees have signed the petition, the petition is submitted to the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). PERB verifies the signatures, confirms the majority vote for support, and certifies the union as the “exclusive representative” of all employees in the group.
Signatures remain confidential throughout the process – only the ACE Organizing Committee and PERB will see them. CUSD admin, other educators, and the public won’t have access.

4. Bargain Your First Contract

The employees elect a bargaining team to begin bargaining an initial contract with the district.
With the School Psychologists and MHSPs, the first contract is completed and they get to negotiate every year for salaries and other needed changes to the contract.
Once we’ve started bargaining, Admin can’t make a change to our work without bargaining the change.

5. Union Membership

Educators can decide to become a member of the recognized union.
Members get access to member benefits and voting privileges at the local, state, and national levels of our union.
Non-members still benefit from the union contract and negotiated salaries.

6. Bylaws & Governance

Members develop bylaws and elect a representative council to internally govern their union in an inclusive and representative structure. (This can take place at any step in the process – and in ACE we’ve already done it!)

The President’s Corner:

An update from ACE President, Amy Kilburn:

At ACE, we try to hold ourselves to a high standard of respect and professionalism, especially when it comes to our fellow educators, so we are very careful before we point out a mistake by one of our peers. That being said, the truthfulness and accuracy of the information shared impacts us all and it is important to keep the record straight.

A representative of ICUE shared a message about the PERB case that we filed against the district and commented, “The district has filed a request for reconsideration concerning part of the PERB decision, but they did not ask for any reconsiderations concerning the disestablishment of Faculty Senate.” In fact, the district did make that request. Please see the citations below in CUSD’s request for reconsideration:

First, in the Table of Contents:

Then twice on page 33:

We feel it important to point out this error for three reasons:

The fact that the district requested reconsideration to protect the Faculty Senate is important and shows that the district has an inappropriate relationship with the Faculty Senate. This was the reason for our charge in the first place. The district administration benefits from Faculty Senate continuing to exist because the Senate is under admin’s control.

Nobody is above making a mistake, and we don’t fault our fellow educators for getting confused by this very complex situation, but this is precisely why we believe in affiliating ourselves with CTA and the network of resources and experts we can have access to through them. This work is difficult and confusing, and we cannot do it effectively without competent support.

Facts matter, truth matters, and getting it right matters. We painstakingly review every word we put out to make sure it is accurate and beneficial. We have a high standard here in CUSD, and we hold ourselves and others to it.

We invite the leaders and supporters of ICUE to join with us in creating a strong, independent, and competent union for all Clovis educators through ACE and CTA.

– Amy Kilburn