To: Rahm Emanuel, Tim King, Lionel Allen, Mary Pattillo, Joseph McCoy, Kurt Summers, Kendrick Ashton, Oscar Johnson, Darryl Cobb, Stephanie Neely, and Alex DuBuclet

Stop Union Busting at Urban Prep Charter Academies

Victory! The creator of this petition declared the campaign a success. You can still sign the petition to show support.

Show us that you support and respect the teachers and staff at Urban Prep who are organizing a union. Stop Urban Prep’s waste of time and resources on anti-union efforts to discourage educators from unionizing. Show teachers the same dedication they show for their schools. Stay neutral as they vote on a union.

Why is this important?

In February, teachers and staff at Chicago's Urban Prep Academies announced that they were forming a union. They stood up to improve teaching and learning conditions in their schools, and asked CEO Tim King to respect their decision and their dedication to the schools.

At the time, Mayor Emanuel publicly expressed his support for these educators. Now, unfortunately, Urban Prep administrators are responding by requiring teachers and staff to listen to anti-union speeches, cutting into valuable work time. One speech made misleading claims about the union that the teachers and staff seek to join, Chicago ACTS. These speeches aim to sow fear and misunderstanding about how unions work.

Until educators vote on June 3rd in the union election, they may continue to be bombarded by administrators’ claims that having a union could result in worse teaching conditions and that a union would not be true to the mission of Urban Prep—a mission that these educators take very seriously and would use their union to uphold. The teachers and staff have discovered how much their administration spends on consultants, lobbyists, and outside events, while seeing the challenge of meeting their students needs despite continued turnover of staff each year.They have discovered how much their administration spends on consultants, lobbyists, and outside events, while teachers keep striving to meet their students’ needs, despite high staff turnover. The teachers and staff at Urban Prep are dedicated to their schools’ long-term success and are organizing to bring greater accountability and stability to their schools and their students.

Public schools like Urban Prep should remain neutral when educators seek to form a union. Mayor Rahm Emanuel should live up to his pledge of support for teachers at charter schools, by telling Tim King to respect the educators at Urban Prep and to stop using anti-union messages to discourage them in their upcoming election.