-By Warner Todd Huston
Implicit in the right to associate with a union is the right to disassociate from one and the later is the right that the teachers of KIPP Academy in New York are trying to employ by attempting to oust the United Federation of Teachers from their places of work.
Teachers at two KIPP charter schools in the Bronx and Manhattan, New York, took the action after the UFT tired to meddle in school affairs without contacting teachers and staff first.
Earlier this year, the teachers union filed a grievance against KIPP Academy’s “at-will” employment policies but the union did so without first meeting with teachers to see if they wanted this action. Teacher Matt Hureau told The New York Post that the union never talked to teachers first. “It was the union acting and notifying the teachers afterward,” Hureau said
This union action, KIPP teachers said, violated the trust that must exist between union, teachers and school administrators.
“The union was interested in a more active part of the way our school operates, and at KIPP Infinity we unanimously believe that what works for us best is 100 percent open communication lines between staff, administration, parents and students,” said Rachel Heuisler, 30, who has taught at the school for three years.
The union, for it’s part, suggested that the only reason the anti-union petitions were raised is because a KIPP school that isn’t unionized had recently sought to join the union. Typically the union did not respond to the charge deciding to deflect by offering theories on conspiracies against them instead.
Tidings of good luck go out from us here to the KIPP teachers for their efforts to dump the union.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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