After Video of Calif. Police Breaking Up Teachers Union Meeting Goes Viral, School Apologizes

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18585/after_video_of_calif._police_breaking_up_teachers_union_meeting_goes_viral

In a video widely circulated on social media, Alameda County sheriff’s deputies can be seen interrupting a lunchtime union meeting held at San Lorenzo High on October 20 for local teachers in the midst of a contract bargaining dispute with their employer, the San Lorenzo Unified School District (SLUSD). The deputies, there at the request of a vice principal, entered the classroom where the meeting was being held and asked a California Teachers Association (CTA) representative leading the meeting to leave campus.

The next day, October 21, CTA filed an unfair labor practice charge with the Public Employees Relations Board against SLUSD, arguing that the school district had violated California state labor law. Guillermo Durgin, the CTA staff organizer speaking with the deputies in the video, told In These Times, “By trying to keep me out of the classroom, and then trying to interrupt our union meeting, the district is essentially intimidating and preventing members from communicating with their exclusive bargaining representative about the impasse that had been declared.”

The CTA-affiliated San Lorenzo Education Association (SLEA) has been in collective bargaining negotiations since March, but reached an impasse on October 13. Durgin was invited on to campus by SLEA members to inform San Lorenzo High educators about the bargaining situation during their off-duty lunch hour break.

After signing in as a visitor at the school’s office, Durgin says he was approached by assistant principal Andrew Vavuris. He claims that he identified himself as a union representative with the California Teachers Association, informing Vavuris that he had signed in and why he was there.