Know your Rights USA
The USA is the largest EFL industry in the world. Worker rights in the United States are guaranteed under the National Labor Relations Act (1935), which protects private sector employees to organize trade unions, engage in collective bargaining and take part in collective action.
Under the National Labor Relations Act, workers have the right to:
- Organize a union to negotiate with your employer concerning your wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.
- Form, join or assist a union.
- Bargain collectively through representatives of employees’ own choosing for a contract with your employer setting your wages, benefits, hours, and other working conditions.
- Discuss your terms and conditions of employment or union organizing with your co-workers or a union.
- Take action with one or more co-workers to improve your working conditions by, among other means, raising work-related complaints directly with your employer or with a government agency, and seeking help from a union.
- Strike and picket, depending on the purpose or means of the strike or the picketing.
- Choose not to do any of these activities, including joining or remaining a member of a union.
Getting Unionized
In the last couple years 5 ESL schools have unionized, all under the Newspaper Guild, whose parent union is the CWA (Communication Workers of America).
Starting the unionization process is easier than most people think. Find a couple like minded co-workers and reach out to a local chapter of the Union you decide to join (doesn’t have to be a teacher-specific union). Secrecy, while it may feel like deception, is essential at this point. The worse thing that can happen is that the wrong co-worker finds out and alerts management before the process of signing cards can begin.
When you and your couple cohorts meet with the union, they will guide you from there and assign a professional organizer to your case. Follow their instructions, and you’ll soon find yourselves voting in an NLRB sanctioned election.
The entire process, from joining a union, to electing faculty to certain positions, to ratifying the contract itself is 100% democratic by law and no qualifying member of the unit is excluded from voting.
What can you expect to gain from negotiations? Much of what is gained or not gained isn’t decided at the table, but away from the table. Shows of unity amongst faculty go a long way to pushing management to agree to certain things. Negotiations sometimes seem like a long and arduous process; but bear in mind the ripple effect that occurs in raising industry standards. When the first ESL schools in the USA unionized in 2012, the three Kaplan International Centers in New York City, Kaplan management responded by giving all 12 schools in the country raises and benefits out of fear that they would also unionize. (It wasn’t enough for KIC Chicago, who unionized in 2016.)
In other words, you should think of yourselves as being part of a movement to raise standards for all teachers, not just yourselves.
Helpful links
Kaplan Teachers in New York: Abetterkaplan.blogspot.com and their Facebook page
The Department of Labor – https://www.dol.gov/
English First Teachers in Boston (Facebook page): https://www.facebook.com/EFTeachersUnion/
With thanks to Jon Blanchette.
