Forcing the Boss to Bargain—Even When They Don't Have To

North Carolina is one of six states that prohibit collective bargaining for public school staff. But unionized workers in two school districts have built enough bottom-up power to force their employers to “meet and confer,” a non-binding form of negotiation.

Labor Notes’ Ellen David Friedman talked with Carlos Perez and Allison Swaim of the Durham Association of Educators, representing 5,000 teachers and classified staff.

Ellen David Friedman: Durham is one of two districts in North Carolina that have achieved “meet-and-confer” status. How did you do it?

Carlos Perez: It’s the product of a two-year campaign, building enough power and capacity to push it across the finish line. Our campaign really ramped up after we organized sick-outs at over 20 schools. We were able to not only get a majority of workers to join the union, but also win probably the largest budget increase in the district’s history.

Allison Swaim: It’s been a multi-year project to transform the union, at both the state and local level. We elected leadership that was down for this type of ambitious campaign. We were able to get resources, including staff organizers who helped support and coach us.

PUSH FOR MAJORITY

How did your union move from minority membership to majority, and how did you get members active and engaged?

Allison: In the summer of 2023, when we decided to hit majority, we put together an organizing committee. We started building committees at different worksites. We got over 3,000 workers to sign a petition on improving working conditions.

We raised expectations about what’s possible. We laid out a plan for how we could do it. And then we put the worker at the center and said, “It won’t work unless you, me, and all our co-workers get involved.”

Carlos: We did a lot of one-on-one member engagement at a scale that we hadn’t done in the past.

Allison: There were many individual conversations, and more and more members were seeing themselves as leaders and organizing their co-workers. The working conditions were so bad. People have to numb themselves to stay in the system because the resources have been intentionally gutted by the privatizers. You gotta cut through that despair.

There had been an ad hoc committee to plan for meet and confer—with union members, non-members, and administration. But it didn’t go anywhere, so the school board finally directed the administration to meet with reps from the union to develop the proposal.

They insisted on closed-door meetings. We had four of these with the boss. We worked really hard to get the policy to a place where we both could live with it.

Meanwhile, we decided to go ahead and elect our reps and develop proposals. We had platform development sessions at over 40 worksites and bus lots asking what the top issues were and ranking them in order of priority. We turned that into a multi-year platform.

We called a public meeting with our meet-and-confer team, and had a big rally beforehand. We invited the superintendent and packed the room. We weren’t sure if he was going to come or not. He shows up 20 minutes late, gets the mic, and goes on a 20-minute filibuster. He gets booed and hissed.

So he leaves because he can see it’s not going well for him. He said he had to go because his wife was out of town and he was a single parent for the week—but then he stayed outside talking to the press for 15 minutes in the parking lot.

Cafeteria workers literally followed him out to boo and hiss at him. Nobody was telling them to do that. They just were so, so angry at how he disrespected us. A lot of people at the table were single parents not even earning a living wage.

But we kept the pressure up, so the school board eventually did vote to put our policy in place. Then we brought those proposals back to our action team to ratify and move forward at the table.

BRIDGING A DIVIDE

SUPPORT LABOR NOTES

BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR

Give $10 a month or more and get our "Fight the Boss, Build the Union" T-shirt.

How did you bring together white-collar and blue-collar workers, and people of different language, race, and ethnic backgrounds?

Carlos: For years there was a perception that the union was a teacher’s union, even though we’ve always been a wall-to-wall union that includes classified staff: cafeteria staff, custodians, bus drivers, social workers, and front office workers.

We were starting to chip away at this through the membership campaign, by talking to workers across the district. When folks saw how much the union was standing in solidarity with classified workers, it really shifted that narrative.

Then in January 2024, the district sent out an email informing classified staff that the raises they had received in October were being rescinded. Almost immediately, classified staff started organizing sporadic wildcat strikes. Many custodians and cafeteria workers stopped showing up for work.

The union switched gears then and focused on the classified staff pay issue. On two days’ notice, 100 workers showed up to a meeting. Many classified staff joined the union because of the fightback.

Allison: When the debacle about the classified staff pay hit the fan, we were able to move quickly, do action cards, and vote to hold days of protest. I’ll never forget that vote—that was a very exciting moment.

Our current meet-and-confer team represents every grade level and every job classification. It’s predominantly women and folks of color. So I think we’ve made real strides in the last couple of years. Increasingly classified staff members have stepped up as leaders. One of our biggest worker assemblies was with custodians, with English and Spanish simultaneous translation.

RED CARD, GREEN CARD

Carlos: The meetings we had last year with board members and the superintendent were dress rehearsals for this year. We learned from our siblings in the Asheville local to raise red and green cards (red if you don’t like what you’re hearing, green if you do).

At one point, after we presented our demands, the superintendent says, “I think you guys already get contracts, right?” And everybody held up their red card, and he says, “I stand corrected.” A lot of folks actually got their contract in their email the following week. The contract [an individual employment letter that the district sends out unilaterally] is extremely weak, but even so, people felt some power because our collective pressure had made the district do something.

Since then we’ve had three sessions, one each month. The first one revolved around ICE and classified staff pay. We wanted to make sure that schools had Know Your Rights cards, for what to do if ICE comes. The superintendent claimed they had made those cards available. But it was clear from the red cards members held up that it wasn’t true. At school the next morning, there was a whole display with Know Your Rights cards. So those meetings lead to more communication, more action.

Allison: At the first session we had over 300 members, parents, and community members show up. Clearly the administration was threatened by that. For the second meeting they said that for safety, only 110 people would be allowed in the room. I took a picture of the fire certificate on the wall, which said capacity is 257. So they had to let more people in.

‘THEY HAVE TO MOVE’

Carlos: We send out a meet-and-confer bulletin after each session that highlights the key points, and we go door to door with bulletins in our buildings. We ask members to come out to the next meeting, and make sure they’re engaged and informed. The sessions are also being livestreamed, with simultaneous Spanish interpretation.

Allison: We have building action teams who work to organize co-workers and make sure they understand that unless more people take action, we’re not gonna win. Admin has caved on a few things, because they realize they have to.

We show up extremely prepared. At first, they showed up like they hadn’t even read the proposals in their inbox. It was embarrassing for them and it has forced them to take the process more seriously and move a little toward us.

Our schools are in crisis. Our goal is to bring the crisis to the district in a way that makes them realize the way to resolve it is to implement the solutions we’re bringing.

Carlos: My principal came up to me last week and said, “We’re already seeing results from meet and confer.” There are tangible gains we can point to, like the individual employment letters and the Know Your Rights cards.

Allison: To win more, it’s gonna take many more people in the buildings, as well as parents and community, getting involved. We’re bringing the heat to the table.