Teachers at Urban Pathways K-5 vote to unionize

This week, educators and staff members at Urban Pathways K-5 Charter School in Downtown Pittsburgh voted 15-7 in favor of organizing a labor union under the Alliance of Charter School Employees AFT Local 6056, a branch of the American Federation of Teachers of Pennsylvania.

According to AFT, the 15-7 vote was of unchallenged ballots and Urban Pathways has challenged an additional eight ballots. AFT officials said they are confident those challenged ballots all will be in favor of organizing.

This vote comes after union leadership said that Urban Pathways administrators were doling out non-renewal contracts to some staff and fired one employee in response to unionization efforts last month.

Arthur G. Steinberg, AFT Pennsylvania president, said he is proud to welcome the 34 new members to the labor union.

“All educators and school staff — whether they work in a traditional neighborhood public school, or a charter school— deserve to have the protections provided by a union,” said Steinburg in a statement. “This is just the latest in a string of workers organizing unions in Southwest Pennsylvania, despite Urban Pathways’ administration’s repeated attempts at union-busting.”

A request for comment to Urban Pathways K-5 was not returned.

Charter schools are publicly funded but privately run. Over the years, hundreds of teachers across different charter schools in the Pittsburgh area have successfully unionized, including teachers at Pittsburgh’s Environmental Charter School in 2018 and Propel Schools in 2021.

Linda Williams is a yoga teacher and member of Urban Pathways K-5 Organizing Committee. She has worked at Urban Pathways for 12 years and said that there has been a high amount of turnover of leadership positions at the charter school.

She said forming a union is “a huge step toward creating stability for students and transparency for all in the Urban Pathways K-5 community.”