Find out about and join our union organizing efforts at Network, April 5th!

Do you want to improve working conditions and push back against mounting workload and requirements? MCAE is exploring becoming a statewide union representing all ABE staff, even if you already belong to another union. Come, tell us what you need, and JOIN THIS EFFORT!

Organizing Workshop at Network
Friday, April 5. Workshop Code: D-2 10:30 am –12.00 pm

Sign up now!

Are you disheartened about the working conditions in Adult Basic Education? Do you want to DO something about it?

Come to an organizing meeting and learn more about building a non-traditional union for ABE in Massachusetts!

• Our next organizing committee meeting is Friday, June 29th at 10 a.m. at the Jamaica Plain Library, 12 Sedgewick St., JP 02130 (in the basement).
   

Can’t make the Friday meeting but still interested? Email Jana Pickard-Richardson ([email protected]) suggesting a meeting time you would be able to make. We’ll try to hold more meeting at different days/times in the coming weeks.

Read up on what we’ve been doing so far:

Building an ABE union in Massachusetts: Yes We Can! (4/25/12)

Early Educators’ Union a Model for Adult Ed?  (4/13/12)

Can ABE Piggyback off Early Childhood Ed. Unionization? (12/1/11)

Home-based early childhood educators have won a victory in their struggle for collective bargaining rights- the MA House has passed a bill that would grant them the right to “negotiate their payment rates from the state if they choose to join a union,” according to the State House News Service.

This is good news for Adult Basic Education, because the most promising model for organizing ourselves right now would be a similar non-traditional union model, the same model that the MECEU* is following.

Read more about the early childhood education victory here.

Do you want to see change in ABE? Do you want to do something to improve our working conditions?

• Come to the next organizing committee meeting: Friday, June 15th, 10 a.m., JP Library (lower level), 12 Sedgewick St., Jamaica Plain 02130
• Read and comment on our last blog posting: What do you love about ABE? What do you want to change?
• Join the movement for an ABE union- fill out this form!

*The bill just passed was NOT the MECEU bill, but is similar to it (it applies to home-based daycares whereas MECEU is fighting to unionize center-based daycares).

As try to build a movement to work together to improve the conditions in adult education, we’d like to know YOUR story.

One Boston teacher, who wishes to remain anonymous, shared her story* with us:

“I have been in the field for 6 years. I work 3 part-time jobs (totaling 32 hours/week; 18 teaching hours) to earn $27,000. My pay ranges from $18/hour (with 1:2 prep time) to $30/hour (with 1:6 prep time). I get paid sick time at my one unionized job, but nowhere do I get any vacation time or health benefits. I get no pay for school vacations or when programs are closed.

… I end up using my home as my office. Then I schlep my materials around from job to job.

…The straw that breaks the camel’s back is the increased workload – DOE requirements for more recordkeeping, lesson plans, etc. This all comes out of my prep time, which really means I don’t get paid for it. I had to fight to get some of this documentation time compensated.

…The long and short of it is that I’m being forced out of the field because I don’t make a living wage. …I love my work, but I just can’t afford it.”

Tell us your story.

Leave a comment at the end of this post.

• Why do you do this work?
• What would you like to change?
• If we had a union, what would it look like when we’ve won?

Are you willing to be part of bringing about that change?

There are many ways to participate!

• Come to an organizing meeting (next meeting: Friday, 5/25 in Jamaica Plain- see below for details)
• Hold a meeting in your area
• Talk to people you know in the field
• Get on our mailing list

Next Organizing Committee Meeting

Friday, May 25th, 10 a.m.
Jamaica Plain Branch Library (in the basement)
12 Sedgewick St., Boston, 02130

Contact Jana Pickard-Richardson ([email protected]) with questions or RSVPs.

Non-Traditional Union News

As we continue to talk to our colleagues about organizing the field of Adult Basic Education, there is some welcome good news coming out of other states where workers are organizing non-traditional unions.  Read about the recent win for the Missouri Home Care Workers.

*Read the teacher’s full story here.

The winds of change are blowing in ABE! An exciting new unionizing effort is going on among early childcare workers, with a new model that could make organizing ABE, with its many small workplaces and part-time workers, easier! Read the rest of this entry »

A Western Massachusetts program chooses to organize.

Part of our series of articles about unionized adult education programs in Massachusetts.

The Literacy Project, a community-based organization comprised of about 20 staff working at nine sites in Western Mass., has been a unionized program for the past decade. Workers organized there after a newly-hired director transformed their democratically run, supportive workplace into a strict hierarchy, where information was not shared and long-term staff were written up for asking questions.

After a series of unsuccessful efforts to meet with the director, staff began talking to various unions about organizing and also went to their Board of Directors to express both their concerns and their interest in unionizing. The Board supported their efforts to unionize and eventually the director left.
Read the rest of this entry »

How can we get more respect for ABE?

by Wendy Mongeau*

During my sixth year of elementary school teaching, I took a part-time evening job teaching adult ESL. …The ESL job opened my eyes to a realm of the education world that I had never known.

It seems to me … that ABE teachers are viewed in a different light from K-12 teachers. … Read the rest of this entry »