GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Union president Michael Mulgrew called on the public employment review board to reinstate the dismissed teachers.

Ending a relationship via e-mail is insulting, but doing it via FedEx is probably worse.

That’s how 11 staff members at a Queens charter school discovered they’d been fired last Tuesday. Now the city’s teachers union is asking the state’s Public Employment Relations Board to give the teachers their jobs back. Teachers claim that they were fired for protesting the school policies and calling for union representation.

Speaking at a press conference at union headquarters today, UFT president Michael Mulgrew said the firings violated the state’s Taylor Law, which protects workers against discrimination for unionizing.

In 2007, an overwhelming majority of teachers at Merrick Academy voted to make the United Federation of Teachers their exclusive bargaining agent. Merrick became the first of several charter schools to unionize as part of the UFT’s campaign to bring the typically non-union schools under contract. (more…)