GEOS Language, British Columbia
$20/hrTuesday, December 16, 2014
Converse School Review by Former Employee
Excerpts from:
Former Employee - English Teacher in San Francisco, CA
I worked at Converse International School of Languages full-time (more than 5 years)
The owner is extremely unlikeable and the bottom line -- school profit is the main concern. Teachers are not appreciated and treated pretty unfairly.
Get new management! Very negative and nasty, and not fair where compensation is concerned. A past academic director was concerned for teachers, but was fired.
Monday, December 15, 2014
NLRB Rules Employers Cannot Make Employees Sign
The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that requiring employees to sign arbitration agreements that contain clauses prohibiting employees from pursuing class or collective actions is a violation of federal labor law.
Friday, December 5, 2014
UK Worker Can't Afford to be a Teacher
Excerpts from: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/04/zero-hours-contracts-teaching-job-insecurity?CMP=fb_gu
I’m tired of thinking I’ve secured a future for me and my child, tired of thinking I won’t have to worry about whether we both eat or whether we have heating, tired of worrying how we will cope if my child loses their school coat. I’ve decided to leave teaching for a supermarket job that will give me the security of knowing how much I’ll have available to pay my bills each month.
Before the summer I regularly worked 30 contracted hours a week across three organisations, over seven days (remember, as a teacher, preparation and marking aren’t counted so this is, in reality, more like 60-80 hours). That was how much I needed to work to ensure I didn’t need to claim work-related benefits – which would bite at my pride too much. But despite being told I would most likely have teaching in September, the phone didn’t ring in August or September. I swallowed my pride, claimed benefit for four weeks and applied for everything. In November I got a full-time post on a zero-hours contract. Bit by bit this has been wheedled down to six hours. I am back where I started, and devastated.
It’s humiliating not being able to pay my own way, having to check constantly if and how much I will be paid (one employer still owes me more than £600 – but there’s a time lag of almost eight weeks between them setting me up on their systems and being paid). It also ruins my mental health. I start wondering if it’s me, will it ever end, is there anything I’ve missed, anything else I can do? My anxiety levels are through the roof. Going to a supermarket brings on a racing pulse, light-headedness and complete panic that, if I buy food today, I won’t be able to pay for tomorrow’s crisis.
The thing about zero-hours contracts is that they’re normal. You can dress them up in all kinds of fancy language, but however you finesse it, in my personal experience, most FE employers use them for most of their staff. The handful of full-time posts that exist are often, understandably, snapped up by internal candidates who are already familiar with the system – which, by the way, creates another pressure to stay in a job, on a zero-hours contract, where you can’t pay your bills, because maybe, one day, it’ll be you. Zero-hours contracts also don’t relate to how good you are at your job or how hard you work. That’s irrelevant. You can have 30 hours teaching a week in July, all your students pass and in September you’re unemployed – except you’re not, because there’s always that hope that if you take on one more job, ask one more time, work a little harder, you may just be able to get by.
Zero-hours contracts are inhuman. They stop people planning for their futures and leave them in a state of perpetual fear. They encourage people to become workaholics and damage family life. And imagine the cost to society. Zero-hours contracts mean lower tax collected, less student loan – if any – paid back. There’s the cost to families too. When others are spending time with their kids, I’m working, snatching moments with my child by text or phone from seven in the morning until nine at night and weekends. I dread to imagine what my child thinks of me. I’ve tried to explain, but it’s difficult. So, in half an hour I will resign, teach my last class and head to an open day at Sainsbury’s in the hope of a job that means I can have the heating on, buy my child winter shoes and not panic next time a letter drops on the mat. Maybe I can start daring to imagine that it won’t be another crisis … but simply a Christmas card.
Monday, November 24, 2014
Minimum Wage Raised in SF & Oakland - Thank You SEIU
More than 192,000 workers in San Francisco and Oakland are the real winners as Bay Area voters overwhelmingly approved raises in the Minimum Wage.
The victory of these two initiatives—each originally filed by a coalition of SEIU 1021, community-based organizations, and fellow labor unions—will give momentum to the national, statewide and regional efforts to raise the minimum wage.
The Bay Area initiatives will benefit 190,000 workers, and add nearly $500 million in consumer spending power to the local economy, according to research by the UC Berkeley Center on Labor and Employment Research. Prop J raises San Francisco’s Minimum Wage to $15 in 2018, and Measure FF raises Oakland’s Minimum Wage to $12.25 in 2015, each indexed to inflation. More than half of workers of color will get a raise.
“Raising the Minimum Wage is just one step in fighting economic inequality, but it is an amazing step,” said Gary Jimenez, SEIU 1021 East Bay Vice President. “Times are difficult for so many families, wages are flat or falling, and it feels like many of us haven’t recovered from the Great Recession. Raising the Minimum Wage gives people hope that things can become better and they can live with dignity.”
“We need a broader economic rights movement. That means fast food workers win a union and decent conditions. It means raising the minimum wage, strengthening public services, and making big businesses pay their fair share,” added Roxanne Sanchez, President of SEIU 1021.
A total of nearly one million California workers are in line to win wage increases, including the 190,000 in the Bay Area. Another 70,000 workers in San Diego would benefit if a 2016 referendum wins, and 567,000 workers in Los Angeles would from a proposal by Mayor Garcetti. (A City Council version is not yet analyzed.)
SEIU 1021 will continue working with community groups in Berkeley and Richmond for a 2016 ballot measures to raise the wage to $15, and with dozens of other Bay Area cities considering raising their wage.
The proponent of Measure FF is Lift Up Oakland (www.LiftUpOakland.org) and the proponent of Proposition J is the Campaign for a Fair Economy (www.RaiseUpSF.org).
SEIU Local 1021 represents over 54,000 community service employees throughout Northern California.
Saturday, November 22, 2014
The Harry Bridges Project - Lessons
http://theharrybridgesproject.org/lessons.html
Workers' Rights (Student Resources)
These lessons have been designed, in consultation with high school teachers, for use in standard U.S. History, English, and Advanced Placement courses. For the teacher, they are clear and easy to follow. They conform to California Academic Standards, but are open to teachers' ideas and variations. They will encourage lively discussions and thoughtful essays. The Plans are designed to empower students to 1) consider their own and societies’ attitudes and assumptions to issues that affect their lives 2) consider their own moral ethics and the values of America and 3) question their place in society, their rights as they enter the workforce, and their hopes for the future.
The Teacher's Edition includes two or three pages of "Worksheets" and "Homework Sheets" to be printed and handed out to your students. Below the description of each Plan is the Student Resources link which has the live links for your students' research. The plans are designed for either 2 class periods and one homework assignment or 3 class periods and two homework assignments.
1) Collective Bargaining
Teacher's Editions –
Collective Bargaining (CA English Standards)
Collective Bargaining (CA History and Social Science Standards)
Students will learn some basic principles of collective bargaining by taking part in a simulated negotiation. As union and management representatives of a hospital, they will prepare their positions and then meet face to face with the “other side.” They will then consider the importance of these kinds of skills in their daily lives.
2) Workers' Rights
Teacher's Editions –
Workers' Rights (CA English Standards)
Workers' Rights (CA History and Social Science Standards)
Investigate the passage of laws that gave rise to the American labor movement, consider the role of the government and of unions in protecting your rights, and discover how much or little you know about your rights in preparation for going out into the workforce.
Friday, November 21, 2014
The NLRB Takes Portland Language School to Task for its Anti-Union Activities
excerpts from:
November 5, 2010 Volume 111 Number 21
Teacher Patricia Raclot — who was terminated earlier this year after she supported a unionizing campaign — last month turned down an offer of two years salary if she would drop her legal case and give up her right to get her job back.
In the four-day trial that followed, a federal administrative law judge heard evidence that the school terminated Raclot for her pro-union activity, and that school leaders committed numerous other violations of U.S. labor law. On Oct. 26, a federal district court judge ordered the school to stop violating labor law.
The case stems from a campaign by teachers and support staff to join American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Workers at the private school wanted greater job security, and discipline and grievance procedures to protect them against pervasive maltreatment, unequal treatment, and unfair discipline.
On March 8, after a majority of the school’s employees signed union authorization cards, they asked the school to recognize the union. The very next day — according to evidence presented at the trial — school head Elimane Mbengue told an attorney to stop working on the renewal of Raclot’s work visa. Raclot is a French citizen. She has worked at the school for six years.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) — the federal agency that’s supposed to protect workers’ right to unionize — investigated Raclot’s termination and found sufficient evidence to pursue charges against the school.
Anti-union members of the school’s board conducted mandatory anti-union meetings, made repeated threats of individual discipline and collective consequences, promised to remedy grievances within six months if workers would vote “no” on the union, and warned that unionizing would scare away parents and cause school closure within a year. They also maintained an illegal “no-complaining” rule, and enforced it selectively against union supporters.
The NLRB wanted to prevent continued lawbreaking while the case is pending, and asked U.S. District Court for a temporary court order, known as a “10(j) injunction.” Judge Michael Mosman granted the injunction for the most part, ordering the school to stop threatening and discriminating against pro-union employees, stop promising to remedy grievances in exchange for non-unionization, and get rid of the “no complaining” rule. The school must also post the court order, and hold a meeting of all employees within 10 days where the order would be read aloud.
If school administrators fail to comply with the court order, they could be held in contempt of court, with jail time and fines as a result.
All ESL Teachers Worldwide: Unionize
By Lauren Holt
Novato, CA
ESL teachers have one of the most difficult jobs in the education sector, and yet, they receive the lowest wages, especially in the United States and Canada. The ESL industry is predominantly controlled by private corporations that often pay their employees less than twenty dollars an hour despite the fact that they require degrees, certifications and work experience. ESL teachers often teach six classes per day in order to make ends meet and work long after their paid work day ends in order to fulfill their responsibilities. In order to make a change, we must rise up and unionize. There are hundreds of thousands of teachers in this field worldwide, all of whom would benefit. Let's stop complaining and let's make a change so we can continue working in an industry we love!
Monday, November 3, 2014
EF is Big $, But Smalll $ for Teachers
The corporation proudly states, “EF is the world's largest private education company [in the world.]”
It has schools all over the world and all over the U.S. including ones in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Seattle, Washington, D.C.
You may wonder how it has been able to grow to such a behemoth. One explanation is they have paid their most valuable assets (their teachers) very low wages (see previous blog entry).
Ask any student who has had a positive experience at EF and they will tell you that it was primarily due to their teachers. Teachers spend (far more) time with the students than anyone else on staff. Teachers’ hard work is not reflected in their salaries (not in the least). Meanwhile the company is expanding with (huge) profits made off their teachers’ backs.
Sunday, November 2, 2014
3 Glassdoor Reviews of EF from 2014 = Teacher Pay Too Low!
Jul 30, 2014
Advice to Management
Pay more.
Aug 8, 2014
Cons
extremely low salary
Oct 21, 2014
Cons
The pay is really low.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Union Representation for Career School in Chelsea (Micropower 2013 Vote Story)
Teachers at Career School in Chelsea Vote Decisively for Union Representation
New York, NY – September 14, 2013 – Management response to Hurricane Sandy was the galvanizing moment for many teachers at the Manhattan branch of Micropower Career Institute. Despite a fierce union busting effort by the owners of this family-run proprietary school (Sam Hiranandey, President and Lalit Chabria, Vice-President), teachers made their desire for unionization clear as a strong majority voted for union representation in an election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.
The West 25th branch of Micropower markets ESL programs especially for students seeking visas for studying in the States, and offers Dental Assistant, Medical Assistant, and Computer Networking certificate programs. Tuition – which can run over $13,000 for some programs – isn’t cheap, but Micropower pays most of its teachers $15 to $18 per hour without any benefits, even for those who work full time (or more) hours.
The owners’ profit margin became especially galling to many teachers after Hurricane Sandy when, despite not returning student’s tuition monies for the seven days the branch was closed, Micropower management refused to pay teachers for those days when school was not in session. A letter to management signed by about a third of the faculty which read in part, “…since most of New York’s educational institutions have acknowledged the efforts of their teachers by compensating them for lost wages, we the ESL faculty, appeal to the administration to acknowledge our contributions by compensating us for lost wages during the hurricane” was ignored and shortly thereafter teachers contacted organizers at New York State United Teachers for help with starting a union drive.
Management retained the notorious anti-worker law firm of Jackson Lewis and aside from the typical barrage of letters sent to workers, management also made them sit through near daily group and one-on-one meetings, often directing teachers to leave their students with writing assignments during the two to three-hour-long meetings they were forced to attend. The Union filed close to half a dozen charges against management during the campaign for alleged violations of the National Labor Relations Act including illegal surveillance of employees, retaliation for union activity, and illegal transference of work. Despite all the pressure, workers voted 21-12 in favor of union representation. Now they will turn their focus to preparing for negotiations.
Contact:
Daniel Esakoff or Julie Berman
organize@nysutmail.org
Phone: 212-989-3470 Fax: 212-989-8154Unloading on the Academy of Art & Commentary
 |
| The Academy of Art has gobbled up numerous buildings in the city and engaged in building code violoations in the process. It's big business, but even business has to play be the rules. |
Excerpts from:
August 8, 2004
This is a for profit school only concerned about making money to further the president's real estate empire.
At AAC, they pay the teachers about $30/hr for class time but don't pay for preparation time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary
The information above provides some interesting insight. The implication being that $30/hr is not a lot for teachers (and this message is from 10 YEARS AGO!). I agree that it is not, espeically in light of prep time not being paid (which is illegal, btw). However, most ESL teachers teaching at one of the MANY for-profit schools in San Francisco (and elsewhere in the country) would be THRILLED to make $30/hr. Teachers at schools like EC, EF, Embassy, Kaplan, St. Giles and others make far less. They make anywhere from $20 to $25/hr. Most make closer to $20. It's crazy. Teachers work hard and are not properly compensated. Meanwhile, these schools/corporations are raking in the dough. We have to make them accountable for their bank accounts and spread the wealth among their most valuable assets. What is a school without teachers? It is not a school.
Employee Review for Academy of Art University
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Academy-of-Art-University-RVW2126124.htm
Oct 26, 2012
Oct 26, 2012
I worked at Academy of Art University as a contractor (more than 3 years)
Pros: Great environment with wonderful teachers to work with.
Cons: Never got a raise even though I worked there for 3 years and was booked every single day of the week for all three years.
Advice to Management: Please give raises to reliable models who are on time and dedicated!
Saturday, October 18, 2014
NLRB Victory for Micropower Teachers
Board Decisions in Representation and Unfair Labor Practice Cases
New York, NY
Micropower USA Corp. The Employer having withdrawn its exceptions to the Regional Director’s overruling of its objections to an election held September 10 and 14, 2014, and with no other exceptions pending and the time allowed for such filing having expired, the Board adopted the Regional Director’s findings and recommendations and certified Petitioner New York State United Teachers, American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO as the exclusive collective-bargaining representative of the employees in the appropriate unit.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
For-Profit ESL CAN Be Unionized!
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/16581/kaplan_teachers_contract_victory_may_light_organizing_spark_in_for_profit_e
BY REBECCA BURNS
BY REBECCA BURNS
Teachers at three Manhattan-based English language schools run by Kaplan, Inc. have won their first union contract with the corporation, breaking new ground in efforts to organize the booming for-profit education sector. In 2012, teachers at the three Kaplan International Center New York (KICNY) facilities became the first employees of private English as a Second Language (ESL) schools in the United States to unionize, but they have struggled since to settle a collective bargaining agreement. On Wednesday, they voted to adopt a contract that includes wage increases and greater workplace protections.
For-profit education “is an industry that’s notorious for low pay and no or few benefits,” says Bill O’Meara, president of the Newspaper Guild of New York, which represents the New York Kaplan teachers. “This initial contract is an important achievement in their working lives.”
In a statement sent to In These Times via e-mail, a Kaplan spokesperson said: “We believe that the two-year agreement ratified yesterday by the New York Newspaper Guild, covering approximately 65 teachers working at Kaplan’s three New York City ESL schools, is balanced and reasonable. It offers wage and benefit improvements to the teachers in New York. And it provides these Kaplan International Centers with the continued flexibility to operate their business in a way that best serves the interests of its students and will enable KIC to continue to provide jobs in the competitive New York ESL marketplace."
The New York City teachers who voted to unionize in 2012 were the first Kaplan employees in the United States to do so. Paul Hlava, an English teacher at KIC’s Soho campus, says this quickly produced a ripple effect: Kaplan ESL instructors across the country received raises in what the union believes was an attempt to dissuade other schools from organizing. Meanwhile, says Hlava, the New York teachers were “stonewalled” as they fought for these same improvements for themselves.
In response, Kaplan teachers escalated their fight, reaching out to students and community members for support and riffing on the corporation’s brand-conscious image. For the last few years, Kaplan has sought to step up marketing of its ESL courses—which are separate from the corporation’s higher education division, but part of the larger corporation owned by Graham Holdings Co., the successor to the Washington Post Co.—with a social media campaign focused around the slogan “the Kaplan Experience,” including a “Kaplan Experience Journal” that encourages students to fill the pages with smiling photos and happy memories of their time spent at Kaplan. Teachers struck back by creating a video entitled “the Real Kaplan Experience,” which details their low wages and working conditions.
According to the video, though Kaplan reaped $49 million in profits in 2012, it keeps more than 90 percent of teachers at part-time status; the average Kaplan ESL teacher makes $25,000 a year. Teachers also say they lack access to benefits: Hlava notes that in his four years of working at Kaplan, he’s seen a doctor only once, and once taught classes while he had strep throat because he couldn’t afford to take days off without pay.
Through their new union contract, Kaplan teachers have won raises that include an increase in wages for time spent preparing classes from $8 an hour to $12 an hour, as well as a company-paid subsidy toward the cost of health insurance. The contract also mandates paid holidays and personal days for “senior part-time teachers” and protections for all part-timers against subcontracting work to non-union “teaching contractors.”
Kaplan teachers see affinity between their own struggle and those of other low-wage workers—particularly adjunct professors, whose struggle for better pay and working conditions has been driving a wave of labor actions at universities of late, and whose ranks are often especially populous at for-profit colleges. Hlava, a graduate of NYU who holds a master’s degree in writing and a teaching certification, has also spent time as an adjunct professor and sees many similarities between the two positions. Like adjuncts, he says, Kaplan teachers’ wages simply don’t match the level of debt they’ve often assumed to obtain professional qualifications. As a consequence, they frequently fall further and further behind on student loan payments even while they work multiple “professional” jobs.
Though Kaplan ESL schools are distinct from the company’s higher education division, they have the same parent corporation, and labor and education activists hope that the ESL teachers’ victory could help make inroads with organizing at for-profit colleges as well.
In recent years, many policymakers and education advocates have urged stricter federal regulations to protect students scammed by expensive degrees that have little practical value. Labor activists have also mulled unionizing for-profit education, which they believe could protect both students and workers.
But only two for-profit colleges—Art Institute schools in New York and Philadelphia—have unionized to date. Organizing efforts are often met with fierce resistance: A bid to unionize the Art Institute of Seattle in 2010 failed after the school reportedly hired a union-busting consultant, held mandatory anti-union meetings and made multiple daily phone calls to faculty.
For this reason, labor and education activists are heartened by the Kaplan teachers’ progress. A 2012 article by activists Joe Berry and Helena Worthen cites unionization at Kaplan as evidence of “stirrings of organization” in the for-profit education sector, and outlines the necessity of greater support for unionization at for-profit colleges: “In the rapidly expanding world of for-profit higher education, there are no faculty unions. It has been predicted that there never will be. These institutions stand ruthlessly by the policy of staying union-free. … The spirit of this organizing is not optimistic, but it is determined.”
Hlava also hopes that the contract victory will “send a message” to teachers at other for-profit schools. “It’s really a tragedy that many people in white-collar jobs think they don’t need unions,” he says, “There’s probably a direct correlation between that and why so many white-collar jobs have become so bad.”
O’Meara believes that the new contract will help set a wage floor for teachers at competitor schools. “Kaplan is one of the biggest companies of its kind in the United States and in the world,” he says. “When they were trying to do things like constantly lowering their starting pay … They were leading a race to the bottom. I hope that other schools will now see that they can’t get away with this.”
Full disclosure: CWA is a website sponsor of In These Times. Sponsors have no role in editorial content. This author is a member of the Newspaper Guild.
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