Support Neutrality for the Carmen Workers Collective
The Carmen Schools of Science and Technology Administration
We are teachers and staff at Carmen Schools of Science & Technology in Milwaukee, WI. We are organizing a union in order to create a more sustainable workplace, improve staff retention through financial fairness, improve transparency and accountability in the organization’s decision-making, and improve equity by giving underrepresented identities a larger voice in the workplace.
We believe that our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions. Education should give all learners the opportunity to thrive and succeed, but this is only possible when teachers and staff receive the proper support. When teachers are not given adequate funding to do their jobs, when support staff are eliminated, when students do not have access to up-to-date, good-quality materials, and when school facilities are allowed to deteriorate, then it becomes impossible for our students to reach their full potential.
Educational institutions both shape and are shaped by society. Education can reproduce structural biases and inequalities in our society, but it can also be a tool for eradicating those biases and inequalities. Carmen Schools have made it their mission to serve students of Milwaukee and prepare them to be advocates in the community, naming themselves after figures like Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.
In that same spirit and tradition, we are asking community members to support our efforts to unionize.
Please sign our petition to Carmen CEO Jennifer Lopez and the Carmen Schools Administration requesting that they respect their employees' right to unionize in an atmosphere free from intimidation by committing to neutrality as their staff exercise their right to decide whether to form a union.
Sponsored by
To:
The Carmen Schools of Science and Technology Administration
From:
[Your Name]
Dear CEO Lopez and Carmen Network Administration,
We are writing as concerned community members to ask that you not interfere with the Carmen staff who are forming a union.
The process of forming a union requires several formal steps, each of which entails opportunities for eligible employees to discuss and decide for themselves -- both individually and collectively -- whether to come together formally as a union. It is up to each individual worker whether to sign a union authorization card, and whether and how to vote in an NLRB-sponsored union election.
We believe it is vitally important that employees’ autonomy be respected as they deliberately and democratically decide whether or not to support forming a union. We call upon the Carmen administration to refrain from any attempt to influence their employees’ choices as they weigh this incredibly important decision.
Specifically, we call upon Carmen Administration to:
o Commit to neutrality as their staff exercise their right to talk to their coworkers about forming a union, and as they move toward a formal election;
o Commit to not spend any Carmen funds to engage in anti-union activities designed to mislead, dissuade, coerce, or otherwise influence employees; and
o Officially recognize their union and quickly move to bargain a first contract should the National Labor Relations Board certify that a majority of union-eligible employees have chosen accordingly.
We request your commitment to respect your employees’ right to unionize without disruption or interference by management by remaining neutral during the unionization process.
Thank you.