U.S. Labor News Roundup

For week of April 22

Workers, Get on the Air!

What if there were a progressive community radio station in the 100 largest cities in the U.S.? These stations could support union organizing and all sorts of progressive causes.

In October unions and nonprofits will be eligible to apply for thousands of free FM radio licenses across the country. The Prometheus Radio Project is ready to guide local unions through the process.

A 2010 law will make noncommercial frequencies available for the first time in large and medium-size urban areas, with a range up to four miles. A single station could reach more than 100,000 listeners.

“Community radio can cover labor issues honestly,” said Bernie Lunzer, president of the journalists union.

A good example of community radio in a rural setting comes from the Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United (PCUN), Oregon’s largest Latino union. Prometheus helped union members build their own radio station in 2006. Radio Movimiento (Movement Radio) has helped PCUN organize thousands of farmworkers, register hundreds of new voters, and address pesticide exposure and sexual assault on the job.

Likewise, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida has used its station (broadcasting in five languages, including indigenous ones) to organize tomato pickers—and win historic campaigns against McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Burger King, and Subway.

Prometheus will help labor and social justice groups both to apply and to get on the air.

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The application and license are free. The only up-front cost is an engineering study, submitted with the application, which generally costs $500 to $3,000. Sometimes it’s free. Groups will generally have two to four years to raise $10,000 to buy studio equipment. Learn more at prometheusradio.org.

Charter School Teachers Join the Union

Teachers in Los Angeles are the latest to join a wave of union organizing victories at charter schools.

Fifty-six teachers and counselors joined the L.A. teachers’ union in February, following on the heels of schools in Michigan and New York. The American Federation of Teachers says its affiliates now represent 8,000 members at 191 charter schools nationally. The larger teachers union, the National Education Association, co-represents many charters with AFT and calculates there are about 625 unionized charters total.

The teachers’ unions have battled school districts as they close public schools and replace them with non-union charters. The charter schools receive public financing but are run by private companies, often for a profit. The business interests that are pushing “education reform” say that non-union charters have more flexibility and are better for students, but there is no evidence that charter students learn better.

Department of Education says the number of charters tripled between 2000 and 2010. Their share of public schools grew to 5 percent, from less than 2 percent.

Charters teachers make less than public school teachers and are given extra job duties outside the classroom. Charters have higher teacher turnover than traditional public schools. “Turnover is part of the business model for many charters,” said Brooklyn College professor David Bloomfield, “because it keeps salaries low.”

Charters are paid an amount per pupil similar to public schools by the school district or state, but save money because they don’t pay into pension and benefit funds the way unionized districts do.

Bloomfield said charter teachers join unions “because, as teachers who haven’t left grow older, they want to take control of their labor destiny.”