An attorney who has done extensive work for the Chicago Teachers Union shared a link on Facebook this week about an upcoming rally with this curious message: “Brothers @ sisters -the strike is on.”
Not so fast, a union official responded, adding a comment to clarify that attorney Robin Potter’s post was “not accurate” and that the Oct. 17 strike deadline was still ahead. Potter doesn’t represent the union and isn’t involved in contract talks, the union officials were swift to point out.
“While CTU is organized and ready if need be … (it) has not officially determined ‘it is on’ yet,” union organizer Martin Ritter wrote.
But even before the CTU formally set that walkout date last month, the union has seemed to walk a line between rallying its members to support a strike and demonstrating it’s negotiating in good faith to avoid one.
Late Friday, the sides appeared to be as far apart as ever, with Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson putting out a joint statement saying it “appears that CTU is refusing to negotiate in good faith, and instead is determined to strike at all costs.”
The union responded by saying that the city’s latest offer was “half-baked and wholly deficient.”
“Their so-called ‘final offer’ covers mandatory bargaining subjects over which the CTU can legally strike,” CTU corporation counsel Robert Bloch said in a prepared statement. “The negotiating team of Mayor Lori Lightfoot and CPS CEO Janice Jackson, neither of whom have ever been at the table, essentially passed an ultimatum and then walked out.”
The union’s tone changed Saturday, with President Jesse Sharkey saying the CTU has offered to accept a phase-in of two of its key requests for class size caps and enhanced staffing of case managers, nurses, special education aides and counselors.
Prior to Saturday’s shift, the union said CPS’s earlier offer would “preserve a grossly inadequate status quo that drives desperate shortages of resources and undercuts student needs.”
“Nearly a week before our strike deadline, the mayor has handed over a final offer that is not just inadequate, but is an insult to teachers and support staff and utterly fails our students,” Sharkey said in the same release. “Their actions today are designed to force a strike, by refusing to put an offer forward that represents progress for students or respects teachers and clinicians.”
The CTU has also pushed for — and Lightfoot has pushed back hard against — using its contract to address broader issues in the city, such as a scarcity of affordable housing.
And Lightfoot’s negotiators have also complained that the union representing CPS support staff members, rather than accepting an offer “that agreed to the Union’s positions on almost every outstanding issue that you identified,” presented a counterproposal that “actually increased your demands.”
The city’s offer “was done in an effort to get a deal done and to avoid the threatened disruption to student learning,” according to a Wednesday letter from a city negotiator to leaders of Service Employees International Union Local 73, which represents about 7,000 CPS bus aides, special education assistants, custodians and security personnel. That group, along with about 2,500 Chicago Park District employees also represented by SEIU Local 73, has also agreed to walk off the job Thursday without new contracts.
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The letter, obtained by the Tribune, also states that it “makes no sense to us” that only one more bargaining session was scheduled before the strike date and urges SEIU’s CPS group to agree to additional meetings. Previously, SEIU officials have complained about the slow pace of talks too.
Lightfoot and the union have been at odds since the election earlier this year, when CTU endorsed Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle for mayor and was among her staunchest allies.
The union donated hundreds of thousands to Preckwinkle’s campaign and helped fund a controversial TV ad that attempted to link Lightfoot with a fatal 2004 fire.
Some mayoral allies believe the union’s approach to contract negotiations is colored by anger over the election and a desire to diminish Lightfoot’s standing with the public.
In the past, Lightfoot has downplayed any rancor between her and the union, and has conspicuously avoided criticizing CTU the way she has Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police.
“All is not forgotten, but the campaign’s over,” she said in a May news conference.
Union leaders have strongly objected to murmurs that their strike footing is in any way a reaction to the defeat of their endorsed candidate. CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates called that line of questioning “deeply insulting to 25,000 grown-ups who are in charge of children.”
“At this point, I have to think that the pettiness is coming from the fifth floor (at City Hall), because they did not get the endorsement,” Davis Gates said. “There is no way in hell that you get grown people with grown people responsibilities to not get a salary over an endorsement. That line has to be created by people who are 12. I know of no one grown who is even entertaining that.”
Teachers didn’t vote to strike over an endorsement, she said, but over more resources for their students.
Davis Gates said though members voted en masse to strike, they don’t take it lightly.
“There is nothing romantic about a strike. A strike is sacrifice. A strike is painful,” Davis Gates said. “Our members feel this fight deeply. … They believe their students in their school communities deserve more. This really is about a smaller class size. This really is about having a social worker and a nurse.”
As to whether they’re spending more energy preparing for a resolution or for a strike, she pointed to the 40 rank-and-file members in the room she’d just left to take a phone call. As she spoke, the bargaining teams were going over contract proposals and counterproposals, going back and forth, she said.
“They want a settlement,” Davis Gates said. “The whole point of a collective bargaining process is to get a settlement.”
But heading into the weekend, the sides appeared no closer to reaching an agreement. On Friday, CPS provided the union with a 71-page offer to settle outstanding issues. CTU rejected 14 of the district’s proposals, according to nogotiatons documents obtained by the Tribune.
In some instances, the CTU rejected CPS’ offer and said it stands behind its first proposal in January.
Michael Frisch, a top Lightfoot adviser who’s negotiating with the union, said the administration is “extremely disappointed by the union’s failure to provide counteroffers on most of the key issues and instead their refusal to move off of their initial position that they espoused back in January.”
“Our offer is not limited to just pay and benefits. We included approximately 70 proposals to address the CTU’s demands about working conditions in the schools, and the lives of students and families,” Frisch said. “This includes support for overcrowded classrooms, commitments to improve clinician and support staff staffing in the schools, and many other topics.”
The union, meanwhile, announced a Friday evening news conference with a release that again underscored its demands haven’t been met.
“Despite CPS assurances that it ‘hears’ and ‘appreciates’ teachers and support staff, the mayor has refused to put her promises for equity and educational justice in writing in an enforceable contract — the only way to hold CPS and City Hall to their promises,” the CTU release said.
As for Potter, the CTU attorney, she told the Tribune that her “strike is on” Facebook post was misunderstood and “much ado about nothing.”
“It doesn’t mean a strike’s in progress. It just means CTU is strike-ready,” Potter said. “That’s all. Not a big deal.”
Chicago Tribune reporter John Byrne contributed.
