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Hundreds of Pittsburgh-Area Charter School Educators Are Voting on Unionization

Interview with
Sarah Boyle
Conor McAteer

Facing down anti-union threats from an increasingly brazen management, educators at more than a dozen Pittsburgh-area charter schools are voting on unionization. For teachers already burdened by impossible workloads, the charters’ handling of the COVID-19 crisis prompted them to act.

Two Meters Apart In The Classroom Stock Photo

Unions are far less common in charter schools than in traditional public schools, and charters’ low wages have long undercut wages elsewhere. That’s why teachers’ unions frequently support organizing charter school educators even while officially opposing charter school expansion. (Getty Images)

Some 430 educators at Propel Schools, a charter school network in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County, will begin receiving ballots from the National Labor Relations Board today as the voting period opens on their unionization drive. The teachers, counselors, coaches, school psychologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, instructional specialists, and nurses, spread across thirteen schools, have until April 29 to return their ballots.

Unions are far less common in charter schools than in traditional public schools, and charters’ low wages have long undercut wages elsewhere. That’s why teachers’ unions frequently support organizing charter school educators even while officially opposing charter school expansion. The educators at Propel are organizing with one such union, the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA), which currently represents around a dozen charter schools across the state.

Jacobin’s Alex N. Press spoke to Sarah Boyle, an English teacher at Braddock Hills High School, and Conor McAteer, an English teacher at Andrew Street High School, about the organizing drive at Propel. Both Boyle and McAteer are members of the union’s organizing committee. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

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