Workers at The Children’s Garden early learning center in Portland are joining ILWU Local 5 on the strength of a 17-4 union election victory on June 10. The newly unionized workers say the win comes after months of struggle against the center’s corporate owner, Endeavor Schools, which owns over 100 schools across the country including Montessori of Alameda in Portland and Happy Valley Child’s Kingdom. The 29 workers joining ILWU Local 5 are teachers and cooks.
Nat Glitsch, an organizer with ILWU Local 5, says after the workers filed for an election on April 28, one of the union leaders was placed on indefinite administrative leave for a dubious offense. The Oregon Department of Early Learning and Care requires that facilities teaching three-to-five-year-olds maintain a 10-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio. When the teacher went to the bathroom, they left 10 signed-in students and one other teacher, but there was an 11th student present who hadn’t signed in on the attendance sheet. Glitsch says teachers at The Children’s Garden are often briefly out of compliance in situations like this. ILWU Local 5 filed an unfair labor practice charge over it with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on June 3.
Endeavor Schools brought in anti-union lawyers and distributed misleading materials claiming ILWU Local 5 dues were twice as high as they are (4% vs 1.8%). The company also pushed for a mail-in election and then furnished the NLRB with out-of-date addresses for roughly 25% of the workers, which the workers each had to correct with the labor board.
Workers will now start bargaining their first contract. The workers are seeking a more transparent wage structure and an end to an unusual sick policy in which teachers can’t “call out” — they have to show up in person for their boss to decide whether they can take a sick day or not.
“We get really sick in this industry,” says Glitsch. “Working with 10 four-year-olds every day, or 10 two-year-olds … bringing illnesses from their household into the classroom back and forth … it’s just like a petri dish.”
Children’s Garden management did not respond to an email and phone call from the Labor Press.
