 The union also undertook a number of initiatives in 2007 to rebuild its influence.When a charter school board suspended its director, principal and four others after parents and teachers accused them of inflicting unduly harsh corporal punishment on students and summarily firing teachers, UTNO argued that the incident was a prime example of why a collective bargaining agreement with due process and grievance provisions was necessarily.The union also began staging small, regular demonstrations throughout the city to protest the lack of a contract and publicize problems in the various public and private schools.