Research Team: Jamie Haynes, ​University of Texas at Austin; Sara Slaugh­ter, ​Education Research Alliance for New Orleans​One key dif­fer­ence between char­ter schools and tra­di­tion­al pub­lic schools is that teach­ers in char­ter schools are rarely union­ized. Only 11 per­cent of char­ter schools nation­wide have col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ments, and there has been lit­tle research done about how and why teach­ers have tried to orga­nize unions at char­ter schools. To shed more light on this under-stud­ied top­ic, we inter­viewed 21 edu­ca­tors in New Orleans and Detroit who worked at char­ter schools where teach­ers attempt­ed, suc­cess­ful­ly or unsuc­cess­ful­ly, to orga­nize unions. This research explores why some teach­ers pushed for a union and edu­ca­tors’ per­cep­tions of how school admin­is­tra­tors respond­ed to these efforts. In this brown bag, we will share our find­ings, includ­ing teach­ers’ pri­ma­ry moti­va­tions for orga­niz­ing and how attempts to orga­nize dif­fered depend­ing on the indi­vid­ual school and city.