In July, the National Education Association Staff Organization (NEASO) was locked out of their jobs without pay by NEA management after an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike over compensation and working conditions. The NEA is the largest union in the country, representing over 3 million educators in the United States with a union staff of 350. The lockout lasted for six weeks, ending eventually in a contract agreement between NEASO and NEA management.
In this episode, two NEASO members talk about the impacts of the lockout on NEASO staff and the larger consequences for the teachers’ unions the NEA represents across the country. Rowena Shurn and Ambereen Khan-Baker join Mel Buer to discuss the exploitation of education workers, the NEA’s responsibility to its staff, and the solidarity forged on the picket line and beyond.
Rowena Shurn: I’m Rowena Shurn, a Senior Policy Program Analyst at NEA. I was previously an educator in Maryland, and I’m currently a doctoral student.
Ambereen Khan-Baker: Hi everyone, my name is Ambereen Khan-Baker. I’m a Senior Policy Program Specialist and analysis in teacher quality in the Center for Professional Excellence, along with Rowena here. Before coming to the NEA, I was a special ed and English teacher for 13 years in Maryland and DC and became active in my union as a coach.
Mel Buer: Today we have an urgent and important conversation with members of NEASO who have been locked out of their workplace by NEA management for weeks. The NEA, representing over 3 million members, is the largest union in the country. Staffers working for the NEA have been bargaining for higher wages and fairer treatment by the union, and have instead been locked out of their workplace after a three day ULP strike a month ago.
First, I just want to make a point of clarification for our audience. Some of our audience members may not know that there are staff unions at unions. Union offices are themselves workplaces. NEASO is the staff union that has 350 members and just like any other workplace, will bargain contracts with their employer. Every worker deserves a union, including workers who are employed by unions themselves.
Rowena, could you give us a short rundown of the events that led up to this lockout?
Shurn: Today is day 21 of the lockout. We began negotiations back in April. From April until May 31, when our contract actually ended, we could not come to an agreement on everything. And so in June, our Center for Professional Excellence, along with two other centers, had a one day Unfair Labor Practice strike. And then negotiations continued, and at some point we received updates around how overtime would work and they were outside of the win which we proceeded with our contract in previous years. And so it resulted in us calling for a strike July 5 through 7.
This isn’t just a job for us. We dedicate our lives and our heart to this work because we believe in education. Education literally liberates you. So I’m sure I speak for my colleagues when I say that that wasn’t an easy place to arrive at, particularly when you believe in great public schools, and that’s something that we feel that every student should have access to.
On Sunday night, July 7, all of us in our personal inboxes received a message from the executive director telling us that we would officially be locked out starting July 8, and that’s where we’ve been since then, blocked out from working with our members, locked out from making those connections. This entire time we’ve been forced to leave our work undone and untouched.
Buer: You bring up a good point. I’m a former teacher — management will use this idea that teaching is a vocation, it’s about the students, as a way to not hold up their side of the bargain, to allow working conditions to deteriorate, and to say during negotiations, ‘well, you’re in it because this is such an important thing, right?’
This lockout seems to have come as a complete surprise, especially after sitting through weeks of bargaining. And when things started going sideways and you’re trying to use your leverage, something that a union should know is a tool in the toolbox, their response was to lock you out and union bust. Why is it so important for a union like NEA to walk the walk in negotiations?
Khan-Baker: I really resonate with what you said, Mel, and we’ve had these experiences as teachers, where you are expected to work all of these hours outside of your day with no pay, and there is this expectation that you do it for the kids.
A lockout is a tactic that bosses and corporations use to suppress their employees, it’s not something a union should be doing to another union. As the largest union in the country, we need to be modeling the practices of joint labor management collaboration. This culture that we create in our organization is so important. Every single district is watching what’s happening because these are some of the tactics that they will use. That is one of my biggest fears. NEA has normalized this practice of locking out staff, and it has gone on for four weeks. This extent of time, and the threat of taking away our insurance, really demoralized and impacted our emotional and social well being.
Shurn: Nearly 30% of our union NEASO members have second jobs. And I don’t know if folks really realize that. I also work as an adjunct professor. We have student loans too, and our loans are not forgiven because we work for a union. This is the level of commitment and dedication that so many of us have.
We haven’t had a step in 12 years for our contract. There’s so much that we don’t talk about because we become passionate about the work. When some folks become administrators, they forget what it’s like being in a classroom, on the front line, in the trenches.
Again, it is a calling, and we believe the NEA should trust us and value it. Show us what the value looks like. If it’s around the idea of fair compensation, then let it reflect the value of what we do for 3 million members.
There are so many aspects of what we do that members don’t see because we get it done, but as Ambereen said, we want to be seen as complete, full humans as well.
Khan-Baker: Ro, you’re saying it perfectly. Both of us believe in this because these have been our experiences as teachers of color. I almost left the classroom my third year, and going through the national certification process really helped me find my why, and helped transform me as a teacher. That was the moment where I decided to coach other teachers to go through the process, and I can only do that through our union. We see firsthand why this work is so important, because it’s influenced both of us as female educators of color. Having these doors open for me in my union was so critical to me staying in the profession. A lot of the members that we work with, we’re supporting them and their journey, ensuring that they stay in the classroom so that they can become leaders in NEA, and they can identify other Ambereens, other Rowenas.
Buer: What are some of the effects of this lockout? What is not being taken care of because you have been locked out of your work? You’ve heard some stories about some congressional staffers texting NEA staffers and asking where these conversations, these emails, these phone calls were, and having to tell these congressional staffers that, ‘Hey, our workplace has locked us out. We’re not doing this work.’
Shurn: NEASO touches almost every aspect of NEA. The systems and structures that help run the organization, those are our members. The congressional folks, the finance department, folks that work with private and public partnerships, whether it’s through our Center for Social Racial Justice, folks that work with campaigns and elections, the Center for Professional Excellence, education policy folks. The entire organization, we pretty much touch directly. So we are all getting the calls, the text messages. School is about to start, and we’re not there.
We have colleagues who have kids with health concerns and issues that must see their doctors every month. That was a big thing about the health insurance, we have folks who have chronic ailments and they must see physicians regularly. We have folks with kids who are on their way to college this fall. Imagine what that’s looking like right now, because their parents are not being compensated. There are so many ways in which our personal lives are being touched. And as Ambereen said, why would you do this? The largest labor union in the country, and what you put in your playbook is to lockout. Imagine what this is going to look like for our staff who do this work with districts. Because it’s only a matter of time before some of them follow the NEA’s lead.
Buer: Beyond the immediate whiplash from the lockout, how have you rallied your fellow workers within the staff union to hang on? What are some of the things that you guys are doing as a collective group to kind of keep each other from falling through the cracks?
Khan Baker: I try to come from a place of empathy and heart because this is how we remember our union values. On the picket line the other day, we broke out in what we call NEASO dance squad, and were just dancing to all sorts of solidarity songs. One of our colleagues, Kai, created a newer version of one of our popular solidarity songs, and it just made us laugh. In these terrible, horrible times, it just made us feel like we belong to each other. I am so grateful that at least we have each other, that we can laugh together, we can sing together, we can check in with each other, because we’re not alone.
A number of us have health issues, and it goes back to some of the impacts of this lockout, the whole threat of losing our health insurance. I sat down and I listened to my colleagues cry. I broke down and sobbed hysterically because I have an autoimmune disease that impacts my entire well being. My son has five autoimmune conditions, and my husband has had an aneurysm and a heart defect. And so the threat of losing our health insurance, I can’t even describe it in words, for someone to mess with our health insurance. So many of our colleagues went through that same experience. So we’re trying to make space for each other to just share, because that is how we’re going to get through this pain.
Shurn: There is definitely a resolve with NEASO that we will get through it together. I’ve never experienced this depth of togetherness in my professional career. The depth of hurt that this lockout caused really motivated us to better connect with each other. We don’t see each other that much because we work all over the country. I flew in for a month out on the picket line. I don’t live in the area anymore, but I flew out because I was resolved that if my colleagues are going to be out there for us, I need to be there with them. There are folks who are taking the trains in every day from outside of the DMV area because they’re like, I have to be here to support my colleagues. We don’t want the ones who live close in proximity to feel like they’re carrying this on their own. It’s not the way we would have wanted to connect, but nonetheless, this has been an incredible journey because we’ve gotten an opportunity to know each other. So when I tell you that there is a connection, collectivism and togetherness that is unheard of, it’s real. And I don’t think that folks are really ready for that. They were not ready for us to be together. And let’s be clear, NEASO is together — one voice, one sound, our say, our pay and our day is what we’ve been united on.
Khan-Baker: One thing I want to point out is that our work supports all 50 of our state affiliates, and Mel you mentioned this — unions have unions, our state affiliates also have staff unions, and a lot of the local affiliates have staff unions. Everyone is watching this, because this is a tactic that can become normalized, and that is one reason why we cannot and will not back down. I’ve never been on the picket line before. I’ve never been on strike. I’ve never been locked out. We have to keep alive and keep bargaining, because this work is so important and because I don’t ever want a single one of our members to have this experience.
Buer: I’ve joined a number of picket lines prior to becoming a reporter and I spend a lot of time on picket lines reporting on labor struggles. There is something unique and magical about the way that a picket line can just bridge the gap in between workers. I always think about this strike at Case New Holland, a tractor manufacturer in Burlington, Iowa — first shift and second shift and third shift workers had never met each other before, and now they’re sharing space on a picket line, and they’re realizing that they’re neighbors, that they have things in common, that their kids go to school together. All of a sudden, whatever management was hoping to do by keeping these groups separate from each other doesn’t matter anymore. The relationships are being formed in a way that is more lasting than any lockout or strike will be.
It’s really heartening to hear that folks with NEASO are trying to reach across that divide because ultimately, this is a showdown. You’re playing a game of chicken with the management and the longer you can stick it out and stay together, the less leverage they have as this lockout goes on, because more pressure is going to start coming from the outside. What can my listeners, people who care about this struggle, do to show support? Is there a way that they can use their small little bit of power to pressure NEA management to really get back to bargaining in good faith and reopening the doors to its workers?
Shurn: The first thing they can do is go to neasomatters.org and sign up to be allies. There’s a link to our GoFundMe for the strike fund as well. There has been such an outpouring of love and support, it has been unreal. It’s not something you want to go through, but if you have to go through, this is the way to do it.
Khan-Baker: If you’re not part of a union, join a union. That’s super important because there’s a bigger picture here with the labor movement. You can follow us on social media and uplift our messages. We have been just trying to get this message out there so that folks can understand, because there are messages from our management and what they want to control and what they want to say.
Buer: Thank you so much you both for coming on and talking about this. I hope that NEA comes to their freaking senses and ends this soon, and in the meantime, anything that we can do to help keep your spirits up and keep this moving in a positive direction, we’re here for.
Khan-Baker: Thank you so much for having us, for just taking time to listen to our stories here. It means so much to us, and we’re grateful for everyone’s solidarity.
Shurn: We would not be able to get through this without people like you. Thank you for this opportunity to make sure that the public knows that we are people back here, and what we want is to be valued, and we want that value demonstrated.
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