WWNO Bricolage Academy teachers Leigh Topp (left) and Brittany Scofield stand outside the school following a vote in favor of unionization. May 28, 2021.
Bricolage Academy became the latest New Orleans charter school to unionize as an affiliate of the United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO), following an official vote Friday morning. Sixty teachers cast ballots and 70 percent were in favor of forming a union.
The vote included the school’s full-time and part-time professional employees, including teachers, associate teachers, counselors and interventionists. That’s according to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversaw the election.
Non-professional employees, such as para-professionals, managers, supervisors and guards, were not eligible to vote. UTNO President Wanda Richardson said eight employees cast votes that were ultimately determined to be ineligible. Reporters were not permitted to watch the vote count.
Like many visitors to this city, Kelly Fields fell in love with New Orleans at first sight. She was a teenager when she traveled there for Mardi Gras from Charleston, South Carolina, but she recalls that she knew it would be her future home. I moved here as soon as I finished high school, Fields says.
Although she didn t come to New Orleans with dreams of becoming a chef, Fields soon found herself working, with little experience, at a small family-run bakery that had just landed a big contract. They had to make 18,000 pieces of bread overnight, she recalls. They recruited everybody they d ever met or talked to, or even seen on the streets, to come help. That one day turned into a full-time job.
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Across the US, the pandemic has turned a generation of renters into activists
Demonstrators are arrested by police during a rent strike protest in New York City on 1 October 2020. The US could be on the verge of “the most severe housing crisis in its history” according to the Aspen Institute, with an estimated 30 to 40 million people at risk of eviction.
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Demonstrators are arrested by police during a rent strike protest in New York City on 1 October 2020. The US could be on the verge of “the most severe housing crisis in its history” according to the Aspen Institute, with an estimated 30 to 40 million people at risk of eviction.
Year in Review: The year of the protester nola.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nola.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.