The latest from Caliber Workers Union
Caliber Public Schools Management Recognizes Union of Teachers and Staff
Dear Caliber Workers! (Español)
Caliber Schools has officially recognized the Caliber Workers Union! CEO Terence Johnson’s official correspondence can be found in your Caliber Email with the subject “2022-05-25 Union Communication to Staff/ Comunicado para el personal sobre el Sindicato.” As Terence stated in his email, our next step is to elect a bargaining team for both teachers and support staff at Beta and CMA. We need your help on these next steps by taking the bargaining survey, signing up to be on our committees (bargaining team or member action team) Don’t worry if you feel like you are too new or don’t have experience, one of your peers can help train you. Any and all your help and experience is immensely valuable for lifting each other up!
Below are ways to get involved!
Upcoming
- Get the word out!
- Terence and Caliber Schools recognizes the Union and is ready to move forward toward the bargaining process.
- We want ALL STAFF to be aware of this move, even if they haven’t signed on and that we want their voices to be heard too!
- Ask staff if they are interested in joining the bargaining committee or if they have any nominations!
- Take the bargaining survey here and run for a spot on our bargaining team, so we can set priorities for our first union contract!
- If you have any nominations (or if you want to volunteer) for bargaining team please send your nominations to our email: [email protected]
- Get your co-workers to take the survey and if they haven’t yet joined they can sign up for the union here
- Send in Photos to [email protected] to show your support of Caliber Workers!
- Join the Member Action Team
- Help us plan socials, rallies, actions, craft nights, social media/newsletters, and help us make sure everyone can stay in the loop!
- Send in your selfie and quote on why you support organizing for a better school so we can make a giant collage of everyone’s face
- Help us build parent power to support teachers, staff, and students in our union effort
- Email [email protected] to get involved.
Together, we are the union!
Caliber Workers Union
Member Textline: (510) 214-2236
Caliber Public Schools Management Recognizes Union of Teachers and Staff
196 Teachers and staff at California public charter school group bring their employer to the bargaining table following 2 year effort to unionize
RICHMOND, California — On the evening of Wednesday May 26, 2022 California Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Terence Johnson announced that the California public charter school group is officially recognizing the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) as the exclusive bargaining representative of its employees.
In the all-staff email announcement, Johnson confirmed that the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) had verified majority support for the union among 196 employees working at the charter school group’s two branches, Caliber: Beta Academy and Caliber: ChangeMakers stating that “PERB confirmed last week that there is majority support across Caliber as a whole for the Caliber Workers Union. Given that… I’m now in a position to recognize the Caliber Workers Union as the representative of our two categories of workers: Certificated, non-supervisory employees (those who are credentialed and who do not formally supervise other staff members); Classified, non-supervisory employees (those who are not credentialed and who do not formally supervise other staff members).”
The IWW welcomes Johnson’s concluding remark that “Caliber and the Union will now establish teams who will work together to develop mutually agreeable labor agreements for both our certificated and classified staff.”
Caliber workers are excited by this major step in ongoing communication and collaboration between their union and their schools’ management.
Caliber Public Schools consists of two campuses located in Richmond and Vallejo, CA serving over 1,700 students in grades TK-8.
“I am proud and inspired to be working alongside such brilliant and dedicated educators. Unionization allows us to join the ranks of thousands of other schools across the country by ensuring that our staff are protected. I see unionization as an investment in our network’s future: Our community has stood up to say yes to partnership, yes to accountability, and yes to the belief that we are strongest when all of our voices get a seat at the table. Our administration has already made some incredible changes. I’m excited to continue partnering with them, and look forward to all that this new chapter will bring!” - Fourth Grade Lead Teacher Gerri Swift
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is a labor union representing nearly 9,000 workers across North America. Established in 1905, the IWW is known for its high standards of democracy, transparency, multinationalism, and active use of the right to strike.
Caliber Public Schools Must Recognize The Union
On Tuesday May 10, 2022 a Senior Regional Attorney with the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) determined that we have demonstrated sufficient support for our union, ordering Caliber management to formally recognize it.
Despite our demonstration of overwhelming support among staff at Caliber: Beta Academy and Caliber: Changemakers Academy, our school’s management has continued wasting thousands of dollars in legal fees in an attempt to resist PERB’s finding in favor of our 190 teachers and staff’s right to have union recognition.
On May 16 we have submitted a letter as a union demanding that Caliber management accept our overwhelming majority vote and not attempt to stall out the democratic process.
Gaining recognition is the start of our process to negotiate new conditions at Caliber. We need your participation to make sure we fight for the changes that are important to you. Get active in the union this week!
The Taste of Victory: California Public Employment Relations Board Orders Caliber To Grant Our Union Recognition
Yesterday, we were informed that the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) has accepted our proof of support at Beta Academy and ChangeMakers, ordering the school’s administration to grant our union recognition.
Caliber tried to defeat our latest request for recognition at PERB with hundreds of pages of legal argument costing the school god only knows how much money in lawyer time, but we prevailed.
What does this mean?
What’s our next move?
What is Caliber’s next move?
Let’s talk all this over tonight at our All Hands On Deck Meeting: TONIGHT @ 6PM on Zoom
Keep inviting your colleagues to join and sign up online or take our bargaining survey.
If you need representation before meeting with management over anything you find fishy get in touch!
150 Teachers and Support Staff Ask California’s Public Employment Relations Board to Certify Their Union with New Filing
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Mar. 15, 2022 Contact: Maxim Baru [email protected]
RICHMOND, California — Teachers and support staff at the K-8 charter school group, Caliber Public Schools, have cleared the way for certification of their union with a new filing at the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), demonstrating that a majority of the 150 school employees desire to unionize under the banner of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Teachers and support staff initially filed for certification with PERB at Caliber Public School’s Richmond-based Caliber: Beta Academy April 2021 with a majority support, but management insisted that the union demonstrate majority support at the company’s second California location in Vallejo, the Caliber: ChangeMakers Academy.
Caliber Public Schools workers are expected to receive certification from PERB within the coming weeks, and will now be assembling a bargaining team to negotiate a Collective Agreement that would codify new standards of basic transparency and community accountability at the school. Workers and families will be working for a seat at the table where they can meaningfully impact key processes and priorities at the school, such as moderating workloads and class sizes, as well as establishing adequate compensation to retain skilled educators.
Retaining skilled, experienced educators is incompatible with perpetual understaffing, stagnating and uncompetitive compensation, and a lack of job security. A new Collective Bargaining Agreement will establish the necessary levers for workers and families to ensure the school is capable of delivering a high quality level of education consistently and dependably.
“I am proud and inspired to be working alongside such brilliant and dedicated educators. Unionization allows us to join the ranks of thousands of other schools across the country by ensuring that our staff are protected. I see unionization as an investment in our network’s future: Our community has stood up to say yes to partnership, yes to accountability, and yes to the belief that we are strongest when all of our voices get a seat at the table. Our administration has already made some incredible changes. I’m excited to continue partnering with them, and look forward to all that this new chapter will bring!” - Fourth Grade Lead Teacher Gerri Swift
“A staffing shortage and catastrophic turnover rate at Caliber Public Schools is resulting in increasingly crowded classrooms while compensation and resources for teachers are stagnating. At schools right down the street, teachers are stipended when class sizes increase and are guaranteed less prep time, but we are asked to do more on the off chance that uneven benefits are doled out at the whim of management — meaning we are expected to work more with less without standards to ensure equity.” - Fourth Grade Lead Teacher Gerri Swift
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is a labor union representing nearly 9,000 workers across North America. Established in 1905, the IWW is known for its high standards of democracy, transparency, multinationalism, and active use of the right to strike.