AFT-Massachusetts Organizes First Charter School Union in Massachusetts

Tom Gosnell, President of AFT-Massachusetts

An overwhelming majority of teachers at the Conservatory Lab Charter School in Brighton chose to join the American Federation of Teachers-Massachusetts, making this music-oriented elementary school the first unionized charter school since the state began the charter program in 1993.

The teachers organized under the state’s Written Majority Authorization law, passed in 2007, which allows public employees and some private sector employees to join a union once a certified majority have signed authorization cards. Twenty out of the twenty-one full-time teachers at the school signed cards certifying that they wanted a union. Charter schools have been notorious for union avoidance campaigns since their inception. By organizing under the state’s majority authorization law, the teachers were able to avoid an anti-union campaign from the school’s Board of Trustees who opposed their decision to form a union.

AFT-Massachusetts President Tom Gosnell had this to say about the historic organizing victory: "By selecting the American Federation of Teachers-Massachusetts as its bargaining agent, the faculty at the Conservatory Lab Charter School in Brighton has shown its desire to have a greater professional voice at the school. We shall work with them to develop even better educational programs for the students."

A group of teachers approached AFT-Massachusetts over the summer to pursue their interest in forming a union at the school. Within the first two months of the school year, 95% of teachers had signed cards, expressing concerns about job security and hoping to gain a collective voice in school decisions. Currently, teachers at the Conservatory Lab are employed through one-year contracts and can be dismissed at the end of the school year for arbitrary reasons or no reason at all. The Conservatory Lab also has a strikingly high turnover rate for teachers, many of whom were dissatisfied with the pay and benefits offered in their one-year agreements.

When the school’s Board of Trustees was informed that a majority of teachers had decided to join a union, their reaction was to call a meeting of all school employees and express their disagreement with the decision to unionize, stating that a union was not compatible with the school’s mission. This sort of anti-union rhetoric is only a small indication of what the teachers would have endured in the run-up to an election under the state Division of Labor Relations had Certified Majority Authorization not been on the books in Massachusetts.

Dan Justice, the lead organizer for AFT-Massachusetts at the Conservatory Lab School, disagreed with the premise of the trustees’ insult about teachers unions' impact on the quality of education, saying “These teachers believe in the mission of the school, they want the students to be successful, and having a collective voice will make the school even better.”

President Tom Gosnell expressed a similar sentiment to the Boston Globe, saying "Unionizing will enable these teachers to have a more persuasive voice in what is best educationally for their students...I know the faculty there now likes the school a great deal, and they are interested in the school achieving and doing well."

The misguided comments from the Conservatory Lab School Board of Trustees are consistent with those from the traditionally anti-union Boston Herald editorial pages and the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, who oppose unions in any of the state’s charter schools. You can read the Herald’s anti-union editorial about this successful organizing drive by clicking here.

Their views are based on the misguided premise that teachers cannot have the best interest of students in mind while also attempting to gain a collective voice and job security at the school in which they are so heavily invested. It is well-documented that states in which the school systems have the highest union density always rank at the very top in test scores and other key metrics, consistently outranking states with low union density. By successfully organizing, the teachers at the Conservatory Lab School will help to discredit these misleading arguments about the impact of teachers unions, and will show that teachers unions help both students and teachers at charter schools by providing incentives for good teachers to stay, rather than seeking higher paying professions or teaching positions at other schools with better job security.

The teachers at Conservatory Lab have selected a bargaining committee and are set to begin contract negotiations as soon as the school agrees to bargain. Helping the teachers negotiate their first agreement will be former Boston Teachers Union President and AFT Massachusetts Vice President Ed Doherty.

Click here to read a WBUR story that includes an audio clip.

Click here to read the Boston Globe's story on this historic organizing victory.

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