The Association of Clovis Educators (ACE), which is supported by the California Teachers Association, filed a petition to intervene with the state labor board last week in hopes of forcing an election among educators in the Clovis Unified School District.
The unaffiliated organization Independent Clovis Unified Educators, or ICUE, filed its petition in July to become the exclusive representative of full-time teachers in the district, which is the largest in California without a teachers union.
ACE challenged ICUE’s petition, questioning who among educators could be represented and eligible to vote, according to The Fresno Beewho was the first to report the development.
California’s Public Employment Relations Board will likely make a decision on who is represented before opening such elections, according to The Bee..
For the past five years, ACE and ICUE have campaigned to represent teachers in the district. While trying to gain support from teachers, ACE formed unions with Clovis Unified mental health professionals, American Sign Language interpreters and outdoor school naturalists.
The ICUE petition, filed with more than 50% signatures from nearly 2,000 full-time teachers, aims to ensure representation for these educators.
“ACE/CTA organized other certified groups because they got the signatures to do it,” said Tony Silva, the union representative for the law firm Goyette, Ruano & Thompson, which represents ICUE. “They did not hesitate to submit their application when they obtained support for each job category, such as psychologists or speech therapists.”
Because the two groups disagree on which employees should be covered by the union, PERB can make a decision before opening an election allowing teachers to choose between ACE, ICUE or no union representation, a PERB official told The Bee.
Both groups want to represent all educators, whether part-time or full-time and regardless of professional classification. Achieving this proved difficult, which is why the two applied to represent smaller groups.
Some teachers did not want to unionize. Being a non-union district has attracted several teacher candidates over the years, district officials said.
Others argue that teachers have not unionized in the district’s 66-year history because of The Alleged Anti-Union Culture at Clovis Unified.
This story was originally published by EdSource.
