Support EF Boston Teachers Who Are Organizing

Organizing Mission Statement

At Education First, Boston, the teachers are dedicated to making EF Boston an engaging and innovative place to study and work. We are committed to providing a high-quality education, promoting innovation and encouraging cultural exchange. The teachers of EF Boston work tirelessly to create lessons and curricula, and help their students reach their academic goals.

For too long, the educators at EF Boston have dedicated themselves to their work without representation. Without its teachers, there is no EF Boston. We are the life blood of this institution. We are the ones who sacrifice our time and energy to make sure that each student is receiving quality language education. EF's success is our success and we want to share it.

We, the teaching staff of EF Boston, are organizing to become members of the Communications Workers of America. We want to build a strong workplace union through which we will fight for better wages, improved benefits and good working conditions. We know the importance of the work we do.  

We know that organizing a union will provide us with the protection we need to do an even better job working for our students.

We are organizing for:

• A collective voice. We, as a whole, want a seat at the table and a say in the workplace changes that affect our daily lives.

• A legally-binding contract that clearly defines our terms and conditions of employment and protects us from changes at the whim of management.
• Transparency and fairness in management's decision-making processes.
• A fair and equitable system regarding distribution of classes, scheduling and vacation time.

• Fair compensation for lesson preparation time, when we work over 40 hours a week, or need to stay late to do paperwork.

• Competitive wages including regular increases in our base salary, instead of small, arbitrary increases.

• Clearly defined job duties and responsibilities.

• Legal assurance that we cannot be disciplined or fired without just cause.

We are confident that we can achieve our goals if we stand united as a group -- for our students, our families and for ourselves. These goals will give us the freedom and stability to provide the best possible education for our students and continue doing the work we love. We call upon EF to recognize and respect our legal right to organize. We ask that every teacher join us in our campaign for a strong and united voice.

JOIN US!

Please go to link and show support.

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/support-esl-teachers-in-boston?source=email&

Support ESL Teachers in Boston!

Target: Jon Cell, School Director, EF Boston & Shamil Mohammed, Director of Operations- East Coast, EF Boston

Teachers at EF's International Language Center in Boston provide quality English instruction to students from around the world and take pride in the work they do -- all they want is fair compensation for that work and the respect they deserve. That's why these teachers are organizing to form a union and join The Newspaper Guild of the Communications Workers of America (CWA).

Please sign here to ask that EF school administrators respect teachers' right to organize and remain neutral during the union election process, which is scheduled for November 20th.

To: Jon Cell, School Director, EF Boston & Shamil Mohammed, Director of Operations- East Coast, EF Boston

From: [Your Name]

Dear Jon Cell and Shamil Mohammed,

As you know, a group of your employees want to join The Newspaper Guild, which is part of the Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO.

We, the undersigned, write to ask that you remain neutral in word and deed, allowing your employees to make their own decisions free of either explicit or implicit pressure from their boss. We also urge you to recognize CWA if a majority of your workers sign a union card indicating their desire for representation. As you may know, this procedure called “card check recognition” is quite common.

As members of the community, we have a stake in making sure all workers in Boston, including your teachers, have the right to organize and demand better wages and working conditions. Please be aware that we will continue to support these teachers and monitor this situation as it unfolds.

Are For-Profit ESL Schools Catching On That They HAVE TO Pay for Prep?

A recent (2 weeks ago) job posting form ELI (English Language Institute), San Francisco on craigslist says “compensation: $23/h. Paid lesson prep.”  Could it be that some of these for-profit ESL schools are realizing that, by law, they have to pay for prep time?!  It’s nice to know that some schools are being proactive and not waiting to get sued like others (e.g., Kaplan, EF, Intrax) have been.

St. Giles Teachers Review Proposal that Includes Seniority and Union Security

http://mediaworkers.org/st-giles-teachers-review-proposal-that-includes-seniority-and-union-security/

Kat Anderson — October 6, 2015

Bargaining bulletin #3

Your bargaining committee met with St. Giles’ lawyer on Monday absent any representation by management. Megan remains on maternity leave, with her date of return still up in the air. As we shared a comprehensive proposal in September, a response was due from St. Giles in this meeting.

The Company lawyer offered a partial proposal featuring “non-economic terms.” Because Megan is out on maternity leave, the lawyer is not able to discuss the money items. The lawyer walked us through the proposal, which was responsive to our proposal. In many cases, it appears the Company adopted language from our proposal, but was careful to avoid such important items as definitions of “full time,” “part-time,” “fixed term” and other phrases used to describe St. Giles teachers. The lawyer agrees that there has been inconsistent use of terms to describe a teacher’s tenure with the Company. Your committee sees that even more critical work is ahead of us in the bargaining.

However, the Company did seem to agree on some important points, which we hope will make more space to discuss bringing health benefits and pay for all work to our members.

According to unit member, Tanner Stinchfield, “We’ve gotten started on a path toward seniority, hiring procedures, a grievance procedure and other union security provisions.”

Committee members also discussed the importance of making every effort to hire and promote women and minorities, as there is a perception that the majority of the more remunerative positions seem not to be assigned with that in mind.

The lawyer restated the Company’s offer to “open the books,“ and your committee stated (again) that we would like to see them. Your committee is concerned with past information that funds from the SF school were shifted to New York as stated in an all-hands meeting on July 2, 2015. A case could be made that had those funds not been shifted, the SF school would be in a stronger position to meet many if not all of the economic proposals that your committee has put forward.

The Company lawyer hopes that Megan will return to bargaining in November. Your committee has made it clear on the record that we expect St. Giles to present an alternate should Megan not be available for the next session. The parties exchanged dates for most of November and the first week of December.

Representing the bargaining team: Adam Benson, Tanner Stinchfield (sitting in for Britt Lollis) and Kat Anderson, Guild staff, with support from Jessica Mironov.

Representing the Company: Mark Ross, lawyer.

Editorial by Concerned ESL Teacher

There is no doubt that the for-profit ESL industry has been profiting off its employees and been a breeding ground for wage theft. Slowly but surely things have started to change, but that is because there are employees fighting back. There have been stories of institutions such as Kaplan’s employees unionizing and filing class action lawsuits. I have had colleagues receive notices about class action settlements for back wages from prep time. All of this is good and provides a much needed change for these companies to comply. Even the ones that never make the news because they have been settled in confidential out-of-court settlements help force these companies to change and comply with the law. But the one thing that they have in common is they required employees to fight and speak up. This is something that is not easy to do and often or not the employees who do fight back face retaliation in the form of being harassed and bullied to ultimately terminated. So before you cash that class action settlement check that you received in the mail from working at a for-profit ESL school five years ago, please

take the time to remember to thank those employees who have been willing to fight the fight.

Here is a list of things you can do to help fight back:

1) Learn the basics of employment law, especially wage and hour laws for hourly or non-exempt employees. If you are in states such as California and New York the laws are fairly strict towards employers. It is our duty as citizens to be informed about these things. Many Employment Law firm websites provide excellent sources of information for explaining these laws in less convoluted layman’s terms.

2) Read your employee handbook and look for how your employer defines their own policies. Are they congruent with current laws? Often times they are not. One of the most common things that I noticed in for-profit ESL schools is the amount of

masquerading they do with trying to legitimize how they break the law, especially in the area of prep time or lack thereof.

3) Report things you think are being violated in writing, such as in email. Even if the organization has a so-called policy for complaints to be made orally, try to still do this as best you can, even if it means emailing a colleague. As a former employee who was retaliated for complaining about public policy issues, my smoking gun for evidence was the complaints in emails and how the managers responded inappropriately. Be wary, companies are becoming wise to this and really trying to avoid implicating themselves in emails, which is why it is important to try and do it.

4) Become familiar with government organizations that handle employment law claims. These are sometimes the first steps in fighting back. Often times they do have hotlines that can answer legal questions and help you file. Some examples include the EEOC, DLSE, and DOL.

5) Write anonymous reviews about the school on sites such as Glassdoor and indeed.com. This gives an accurate portrayal of what it is really like to work at places and sometimes it is one of the safer ways to speak up.

6) Work in solidarity with other employees. This is probably the biggest criticism I had with many of my colleagues when I fought a for-profit ESL school. There was a lack of solidarity with the other employees. When I requested one to become a witness in my case he became too scared of retaliation and reported it to management who told him to cease contact with me. I get how you can be scared of retaliation, which is something that is very real. But you can’t go through life being a coward, and at some point you should do the right thing. My case could have been a bigger class action case had my colleagues been more willing to fight with me instead of becoming scared and running, which is exactly what these for-profit ESL schools want. There is safety in numbers and this certainly makes retaliation much more difficult. So please, try to support your colleagues who speak up, not only do they really need your support on an emotional level, but it makes things safer for everyone.

7) Find local employment law firms in your area. One of the biggest surprises I found is the number of attorneys who are willing to work on contingency (work for free until settlement). Many of these firms will offer free consultations, which can be useful for obtaining legal information and learning about what steps to take. Should you decide to seek the help of an employment law firm realize you are entering a contract and have realistic expectations on a settlement. Yes, many of these firms genuinely care about employee rights, but they are also a business.

8) Read books on employment rights and laws. One of the best books that I read and followed a lot of advice from was “Stand Up For Yourself Without Getting Fired: Resolve Workplace Crises Before You Quit, Get Axed or Sue the Bastards” by Donna Ballman. I read this book while I was still employed and it helped me with understanding the process better. It gave me such ideas as how to write a formal complaint and suggest remedies to my former employer such as professional mediation. Ultimately, my former employer failed to do anything and I was terminated, but my documentation and desire to seek remedies helped me to secure a lawyer to help sue the bastards.

*This is not meant to be professional legal advice. Only a lawyer can give you that. My goal is to point employees in the right direction and encourage you to stand up for yourself. This is an industry that will only change if people start fighting back. Complacency will only continue to perpetuate the status quo that many of these for-profit ESL schools are banking on.

Resource: http://wagetheft.org/wordpress/?m=201208

Another Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against a For-Profit ESL School (Intrax)

A Class Action Suit has been filed against INTRAX in San Diego Co.  The suit claims unlawful wage deductions, failure to pay minimum wage, failure to pay overtime, failure to provide paid rest periods, failure to pay all vested vacation, failure to pay wages upon termination of employment, failure to provide accurate wage statements, unfair competition, and related claims for civil penalties under the California Labor Code.

Claims apply to those who worked for the company between July 30, 2010 and July 1, 2015.  Any Intrax instructors who worked during this period and want to collect money owed to them should contact attorneys representing the class action.

https://www.robbinsarroyo.com/attorneys/

Robbins Arroyo LLP

Brian J. Robbins

Diane E. Richard

600 B Street, Suite 1900

San Diego, CA  92101

Telephone: (619) 525 - 3990

Fax: (619) 525 - 3991

Email: drichard@robbinsarroyo.com

case number: 37-2014-00025454-CU-OE-CTL
SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO

Matt Damon Supports Unions

EF International Must Cease and Desist, Etc (as per NLRB Order)

​https://www.nlrb.gov/case/20-CA-120999

ORDER The National Labor Relations Board orders that the Respondent, EF International Language Schools, Inc., San Francisco, California, its officers, agents, successors, and assigns, shall 1. Cease and desist from

(a) Threatening employees with unspecified reprisals if they engage in protected concerted activities.

(b) Discharging employees because they engage in protected concerted activities.

(c) In any like or related manner interfering with, restraining, or coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed them by Section 7 of the Act. 2. Take the following affirmative action necessary to effectuate the policies of the Act.

(a) Within 14 days from the date of this Order, offer Andrea Jesse full reinstatement to her former job that job no longer exists, to a substantially equivalent position, without prejudice to her seniority or any other rights or privileges previously enjoyed.

(b) Make Andrea Jesse whole for any loss of earnings and other benefits suffered as a result of the discrimination against her, in the manner set forth in the remedy section of the decision.

(c) Compensate Andrea Jesse for the adverse tax consequences, if any, of receiving a lump-sum backpay award, and submit the appropriate documentation to the Social Security Administration so that when backpay is paid to Andrea Jesse, it will be allocated to the appropriate calendar quarters.

(d) Within 14 days from the date of this Order, remove from its files any reference to the unlawful discharge, and within 3 days thereafter, notify the employee in writing that this has been done and that the discharge will not be used against her in any way.

(e) Preserve and, within 14 days of a request, or such additional time as the Regional Director may allow for good cause shown, provide at a reasonable place designated by the Board or its agents, all payroll records, social security payment records, timecards, personnel records and reports, and all other records, including an electronic copy of such records if stored in electronic form, necessary to analyze the amount of backpay due under the terms of this Order.

(f) Within 14 days after service by the Region, post at its San Francisco, California facility copies of the attached notice marked “Appendix.”4 Copies of the notice, on forms provided by the Regional Director for Region 20, after being signed by the Respondent’s authorized representative, shall be posted by the Respondent and maintained for 60 consecutive days in conspicuous places including all places where notices to employees are customarily posted. In addition to physical posting of paper notices, notices shall be distributed electronically, such as by email, posting on an intranet or an internet site, and/or other electronic means, if the Respondent customarily communicates with its employees by such means. Reasonable steps shall be taken by the Respondent to ensure that the notices are not altered, defaced, or covered by any other material. If the Respondent has gone out of business or closed the facility involved in these proceedings, the Respondent shall duplicate and 4 If this Order is enforced by a judgment of a United States court of appeals, the words in the notice reading “Posted by Order of the National Labor Relations Board” shall read “Posted Pursuant to a Judgment of the United States Court of Appeals Enforcing an Order of the National Labor Relations Board.” mail, at its own expense, a copy of the notice to all current employees and former employees employed by the Respondent at any time since November 20, 2013.

(g) Within 21 days after service by the Region, file with the Regional Director for Region 20 a sworn certification of a responsible official on a form provided by the Region attesting to the steps that the Respondent has taken to comply.

Dated, Washington, D.C. October 1, 2105

SBCC Votes NOT to Extend Contract with Kaplan

Excerpted from: http://www.independent.com/news/2015/sep/25/sbcc-votes-against-renewing-contract-kaplan-intern/

Friday, September 25, 2015

In response to growing community concern about large numbers of international students attending English-language training schools, the Santa Barbara Community College Board of Trustees voted not to extend its contract with Kaplan International English to lease campus space. Kaplan is one of a handful of English-language schools that have drawn the ire of community activists concerned that the presence of so many international students was pushing rents up and local families out.

One Teacher & NG Reps Talk About Getting a Contract at Kaplan, NYC (Video)

Embassy CES Uses Deceptive Tactics to Mislead Job Candidates

A craigslist job posting from earlier this month for an ESL Teacher at San Francisco's Embassy CES showed that they use deceptive tactics to lure prospective teachers.

In the posting they write, “Benefits include paid holidays and sick days (certain conditions apply) and paid preparation time.”

Here are some problems with that -

1. While it is true that companies are not obligated to provide paid holidays, the vast majority of larger companies do provide them. BTW, ECES (Study Group) is an extremely large company.
2. In California, employers are obligated to provide paid sick time (Thank you Governor Jerry Brown for signing AB 304 into law which took effect July 13, 2015).  Therefore, this is not a benefit, but just the company following the law.
3. Likewise for paid preparation time.  By law, all non-exempt employees (= paid by the hour) must be compensated for all time they spend working for the company.  This includes prep time.  So again, this IS NOT a benefit. See U.S. Dept. of Labor, Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Addressing #3 above - one might assume that Embassy CES learned its lesson from other corporate ESL schools in San Francisco like Kaplan and EF International both of which were sued by teachers who hadn’t been paid for their prep time. As part of the settlements in these cases, the companies were required to provide back-pay for all the prep time that they should have been paying to begin with.

These kinds of class action suits by teachers can force these greedy companies who disregard labor laws in their efforts to increase profits to be more honest.  I say only “more honest” because there is still a lot of work to be done.

P.S. If you are part of the Google Group - SF ESL Teachers, you can view the full job description/craigslist posting posted today at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/SFESLteachers

Converse International, SF Has Been Cited and Fined by the Bureau of Postsecondary Education

San Francisco’s Converse International has been cited and fined by California’s Bureau of Postsecondary Education        www.bppe.ca.gov      

http://www.bppe.ca.gov/enforcement/actions/citation_1415050.pdf

St. Giles, SF Has Done It ! - They've Unionized !

http://mediaworkers.org/esl-teachers-unionize/

Kat Anderson — July 7, 2015

In a vote of 16 to 5, teachers from St. Giles International in San Francisco, an English language school, voted today for Pacific Media Workers Guild (Local 39521) representation.

The unit started organizing last November around issues of lack of pay for preparation time, low wages, inconsistent hours of work, job security and lack of benefits.

Carl Hall, Kat Anderson and Gloria La Riva from the Pacific Media Workers Guild worked on this campaign along with John Dugan from Communications Workers of America.

EF Internship - A chance to be overworked for NO money

EF’s exploitation efforts know no bounds. Have a look at duties and hours below. Don't you think someone taking on all these responsibilities should be paid by one of the largest revenue private school companies in the world???

https://ec.europa.eu/eures/droppin/en/content/internship-ef-international-language-centers

Internship - EF International Language Centers

EF International Language Centre ...... offering ...... internship placements to the right applicants and usually has at least four interns of various backgrounds working in different departments of the school at any time. Interns are expected to take on real responsibilities, challenging workloads and are considered part of the team.

As this is an unsalaried position,......

Internship package:

Exact duties to be allocated on arrival and subject to change but to be administrative & student contact based in office/reception areas

Accommodation provided in campus student residence in shared room (sharing with staff)

Bathroom & toilet facilities shared with students

No cooking facilities but full meal package provided in campus cafeteria free of charge (lunch Monday – Friday only)

Local travel costs will be paid if required to live off campus Free access to WiFi Opportunity to undertake specific projects if desired

Preferred length of internship is six months

Complimentary arrival transfer from any London airport

Essential skills/requirements: Excellent English language skills Outgoing & confident personality with friendly manner and good sense of humour

Good communicator who enjoys meeting people Flexible, energetic & flourishes in busy & varied work environment

Organised & creative, attention to presentation & detail

Customer service focused Multicultural experience/awareness

Possible duties: Customer Support/Welfare Department General administrative & clerical duties, reception duties

Processing new enrolments & changes to students courses

Assisting with registration of new students on arrival

Answering student enquiries & other reception duties

Supporting Welfare Officer in following up on student welfare issues

Other general daily support to Customer Support Manager

Social Activities Department

Help to organise, promote and supervise weekday, evening and weekend social activities

Monitoring school social media platforms and generating positive social media content

Answering student enquiries and providing information about events & activities outside school

Other general daily support to activities officers Homestay

Accommodation Department Answering student and home stay provider enquiries

Assisting with homestay recruitment campaigns and activities Visit new/existing homes to check suitability Other general daily support to

Homestay Accommodation Manager Residence Accommodation Department

Help with student enquiries Liaise with Sales Offices regarding residence availability for new bookings

Assist with residence room allocations & administration Prepare residence newsletters

Support Residence Manager in liaising with suppliers such as cleaning, catering and laundry companies to ensure best service

Other general daily support to Residence Manager

Academic Department Assist with registration & induction of new students on arrival

Assist with organisation of departure tests & distribution of departure reports & certificates

Weekly attendance and welfare checks for students missing classes

Preparation of Teacher Induction Packs Distribution of class books to teaching staff

Preparation & distribution of weekly teacher documents such as class registers

Advising and assisting students with basic academic issues such as assigning new online classes, taking requests for class changes and so on.

Other general daily support to academic managers.

Residence responsibilities:

(Staff receiving residence accommodation must undertake additional residence responsibilities as well as their work in school)

Weekend reception hours – as advised by line manager

Assist with checking in & out arrivals and departures to the EF residence

Administration tasks relating to residence work such as preparing arrival information, keys etc Carrying out room checks Carrying out nightly curfew checks for under 18s on rotation

Assisting residence students with general enquiries over the weekend

Checking and reporting welfare issues relating to students in residence

Assist with devising, organisation and supervision of campus evening activities on rotation

This list of possible duties is not comprehensive and all interns may be asked to help with other school duties.

EF is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. All appointments are subject to a criminal records check and character referencing. To be eligible, you must have the right to work in the UK and your internship must form part of your university scheme or course of study.

Hours per week:

40

EF Teachers in Dublin Stand Together for Collective Action with Management (News from 2014)

http://www.wsm.ie/c/english-language-teachers-standing-together-union

2014-06-04

"In the space of 2 weeks a group of EL (English language) teachers joined a trade union, won our pay dispute with the multi-national we work for, and started planning to unionise the EL sector and campaign against zero hours contracts." - We are delighted to bring you this account from Aideen Elliott of her and her colleagues' recent victory against proposed wage cuts at EF Language School in Dublin.

"This is significant for a number of reasons. Most EL teachers are precarious workers on zero hours contracts of a fixed term (in our case 3 months) so we have no job security and the work is of a transient nature. Zero hours contracts mean that workers who dispute with management are wide open to having their hours cut and their contracts not renewed.

However none of this stopped the entire staff from getting organised when on Friday 16 May EF International, the world’s leading language school centre, and official supplier of language to the Olympic games’ announced 10% and 15% pay cuts to teachers, depending on our current rate.

The director told us in individual meetings that EF had to make these cuts because due to currency fraud in some Dublin schools, the Venezuelan government were no longer giving student visas for Ireland and that this had hit EF hard. We didn’t buy it. For one, EF International is rich. Also fewer students means fewer classes and since we’re paid by the class we are already taking a hit for the company. In addition, we’re coming into summer and as everyone knows that means booming business for EL schools in Dublin. As teachers we provide the service that students pay for. We’re not selling a product EF have made; we are the product – we stand in front of classes and make it happen. This makes it difficult to stomach when we know how much the students pay and how little we make, we can practically see the cash floating by us on its way to the company’s Swiss headquarters. We’re already only paid by the hours we teach, despite all the preparation and admin work we do, and the money isn’t good. We basically felt that we had nothing to lose and were in complete agreement that none of us would accept any pay cut.

This put us in a strong position to act. But EF didn’t recognise this. As soon as we got a chance to meet on Monday we wrote a letter to EF to say we unanimously rejected the cuts. We gave the letter signed by all of us to the director and said that we would not do any more individual meetings but wanted to be treated as a collective. Her response was to invite each of us to an individual meeting. A week of back and forth followed, us joining the Independent Workers Union, them refusing to recognise trade unions, us inviting management to meet us as a group, them responding requesting individual meetings.

Conscious that for many of us time was running out as the 3 month contracts were coming to an end we were anxious to act fast. We got great advice and support from our own trade union and from others in the trade union movement. We discussed our options and decided to ballot for strike action. This was carried unanimously and planned for the following Tuesday. We also organised a protest for the Thursday of that week which a lot of people supported and publicised.

On Tuesday morning we served the director with strike notice. That same day a teacher did an interview with the Irish Times and the journalist called our director for a comment. By that evening we’d all been invited to meet, as a group, with the director and an EF executive who was flying in from Switzerland to discuss our proposed strike action. This in itself felt like a small victory.

On Wednesday at this meeting the EF exec started off by apologising to us. She gave a long explanation for the cuts (Venezuela, rent increase) and also for why EF really didn’t want us to strike (the bother of flying in EF teachers from other schools). She finished by saying that EF would retract the proposed cuts and we could keep our current rates of pay.

It wasn’t enough for us. EF had issued each of us with a letter warning that if we didn’t accept the cuts this could result in fewer hours for us. When we asked management what guarantee we could have that they wouldn’t just give all our hours to the cheaper new teachers we didn’t get a straight answer. This was one reason we decided we’d go ahead with the protest despite them meeting our first demand. Another was that we didn’t want to be working alongside other teachers getting such rubbish pay and we felt that EF was dragging down the conditions in the sector.

On Thursday just an hour and a half before the planned protest EF management gave us each a signed letter informing us that they would ‘withdraw the proposal’ for all wage cuts, ours and future teachers, and they ‘hoped’ that we’d call off our protest and strike action…basically that we’d won!

We decided to cancel the protest and suspend (not cancel) the strike, pending negotiations with EF.

Since then we’ve been in touch with the English Language students whose schools closed down leaving them high and dry and we’re talking about working together for improvements in the sector for workers and students. We know that there are lots of teachers getting screwed over in this sector and we’re hoping to link in with some of them and have some more successes. We’re also realizing now more than ever how zero hours contracts need to be abolished.

Our spirits couldn’t be higher and we’re all excited about working together and confident about what we can achieve with collective action."