The DeMaio Report: San Diego Educators Begin New Effort to Oust SDEA Union Bosses from School

“The DeMaio Report” KOGO, San Diego with Carl DeMaio, host and guest National Right To Work President Mark Mix.Show more

Topic: New decertification push by teachers at Gompers Preparatory Academy in San Diego

San Diego Gompers Preparatory Academy Educators Begin New Effort to Oust SDEA Union Bosses from School

Union bosses stymied last attempt with unproven allegations and pressure from elected officials, majority of teachers now back new effort
San Diego, CA (March 13, 2023) – Teachers at Gompers Preparatory Academy, a public charter school in the Chollas View neighborhood of San Diego, have banded together again to exercise their right to vote San Diego Education Association (SDEA) union bosses out of power at the school.
With free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, Gompers computer teacher Sean Bentz just submitted a petition to the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), requesting the agency hold a vote among his colleagues on whether to oust the union. The petition contains signatures of a majority of the teachers under the SDEA union’s control.

Bentz’s petition marks the second time in just over three years that Gompers educators have attempted to boot the SDEA union from the school. Gompers chemistry teacher Dr. Kristie Chiscano submitted a decertification petition with Foundation legal aid in October 2019. Despite this petition also having the backing of the requisite number of teachers to spur a decertification vote, SDEA union bosses attempted to avert the election by filing so-called “blocking charges” containing allegations of employer misconduct.

Union officials often manipulate “blocking charges” at the PERB and other state and federal labor relations agencies to stifle worker attempts to eliminate unpopular union “representation.” Despite the PERB never holding a hearing into whether SDEA union bosses’ claims had any merit or whether they were related to the workers’ dissatisfaction with the union, PERB officials denied a decertification election to Chiscano and her colleagues in October 2020.

State Labor Agency’s Rule Aided Union in Blocking Vote

Chiscano’s case defending the first petition to remove SDEA union agents from the school also sought to overturn PERB Regulation 32752, which requires PERB agents and attorneys to accept union bosses’ “blocking charge” allegations as true – a stipulation almost guaranteeing union defeat of any worker attempt to vote a union out.

The initial union decertification effort took place not long after SDEA officials gained power at the school in January 2019 via “card check,” a process that bypasses the traditional secret-ballot vote system to install a union. Gompers made an impressive transition to being a union-free charter school in 2005 after years of being plagued by unresponsive union bureaucracies, violence, and poor academic achievement, so many teachers and parents viewed the reinstallation of union power at the school with suspicion. Some accused SDEA agents of actively sowing division at the school, including by supporting anti-charter school legislation and needlessly disparaging the school’s leadership.

... for more visit: https://www.nrtw.org/news/gompers-sdea-decert-03132023/