Our Values

Ang and Michelle are committed to the principles of democratic unionism, continuing to grow a culture of organizing in JCEA, and helping educators develop their voice and advocacy. These will be the foundations of how we operate as leaders.

Democractic Unionism

Democratic Unionism calls for our union to be transparent, accountable, and responsible to its members. For us, this means investing in the power and voices of our rank-and-file members. To grow this culture in JCEA, we want to:

Provide more trainings for ARs and rank-and-file members to understand how they can participate and influence union activities.
Provide contract and grievance trainings for ARs and rank-and-file members so that they are not dependent upon JCEA staff and leaders to address issues in their workplace.
Provide a method for ARs to add agenda items to the AR council meeting.
Provide updates to actions taken at AR council in subsequent meetings.
Provide access to and training on JCEA documents and processes.
Support members organizing through groups such as caucuses that are outside of official leadership structures.
Analyzing and addressing issues of equity inside JCEA as experienced by our members from marginalized communities.
Continue current democratic practices such as providing access to meeting minutes and budget information, supporting fair elections, getting member input for bargaining, growing member participation at the bargaining table, and protecting AR participation at council meetings.

Culture of Organizing

A union with an organizing culture provides its members with the training and agency to improve their own conditions instead of relying only upon union leadership and staff. To us, this goes hand-in-hand with democratic unionism. To build our culture of organizing in JCEA we will:

Continue creating opportunities for training in organizing and leadership
Provide new opportunities for members who want to get more involved
Create trainings for members to learn skills such as power mapping, organizing conversations, making asks, sharing stories, leader identification, and site-level issue organizing.
Open trainings and opportunities to both ARs and rank-and-file members

Educator Voice

Educators have been trained in their jobs, they have relationships with their students, and they have experience seeing what supports or gets in the way of student learning. Sadly, educators are seldom at the tables making the decisions that impact our work. Ang and Michelle have a history of growing educator voice and will continue to do so by:

We will provide regular trainings for our members to learn how to tell their stories with confidence and create opportunities to share them in meaningful spaces.

Providing regular trainings for members to learn how to tell their stories with confidence.
Bring members to the bargaining table to tell their stories.
Train members in speaking with elected officials.
Continuing to build our liaison program with legislators and school board members.

Educators have been trained in their jobs, they have relationships with their students, and they have experience seeing what supports or gets in the way of student learning. Sadly, educators are seldom at the tables making the decisions that impact our work. However, our union provides us with a unique opportunity to share our stories with policy-makers at the district, state, and national levels as well as with our community.

Solidarity

Solidarity is a core union value, emphasizing collective strength and mutual support. Yet we hear too many stories about educators who feel alone and unsupported. It is important for us to care about our fellow workers and stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the fight to improve working conditions. To grow solidarity, we will:

Continue committing to visiting buildings and hearing member stories.
Provide opportunities for members to hear the experiences of other members who may be facing similar challenges.
Begin building organizing structures in our buildings that ensure every member is connected to another member
Partner with our JESPA siblings at the bargaining table and beyond.
Participate as a leader in the May Day movement with other unions in the metro area
Regularly meet with leaders from other unions in Jeffco and find ways we can partner on common good issues.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse