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Bus aides, custodians and special education classroom assistants help make CPS schools run. Some say they still struggle to make ends meet.

Yolanda McGrone didn’t want anyone to know she was homeless, not even her mother.

Tears rolled down her eyes Wednesday morning as she talked about how she spent three months in her car last summer because of her financial struggles as a Chicago Public Schools bus aide.

A single mother of a 16-year-old son and another 28-year-old son with special needs, she works two other jobs to try to make up the income. But last year, it wasn’t enough.

“I just did what I had to do,” she said.

McGrone, 47, spoke into a megaphone to her fellow Service Employees International Union Local 73 members Wednesday as they made their way to City Hall to protest during Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s first budget address.

It was the seventh day of their strike — the fifth school day — during which they are forgoing pay to try to come to a contract agreement with the city.

SEIU, which represents bus aides, custodians and special education classroom assistants, last met with the city’s negotiators on Monday, said the union’s chief negotiator Larry Alcoff, but have been dissatisfied with the city’s pay offer.

Bus aides, who work part time, make an average of $15,759 a year, the union said. Custodians make $34,491 and special education assistants make $36,333, both of which are full-time positions.

During that meeting, CPS negotiators gave them a piece of paper that outlined about the same offerings they presented before the strike, Alcoff said. The meeting ended after 12 minutes.

The union said the city ended the meeting, but the city said the opposite. Each side has said they believe the other is not willing to negotiate.

“SEIU has made it very clear they’re not doing anything until CTU moves,” Lightfoot said Monday.

The city has made an offer that would add “hundreds of millions of dollars” to the CTU and SEIU contracts, but there’s nothing more in the budget to offer, Lightfoot said.

The deal the city has offered SEIU so far includes providing bus aides, who are currently paid about four hours a day, the opportunity to work full-time instead of part-time, said a source close to the negotiations who was not authorized to speak on the record. Bus aides are paid $19.41 per hour and have full health care coverage, even though they are considered part-time workers, the source said.

In addition, the lowest-paid custodians will see an average increase of 7%-8% in pay in the first year and an increase in vacation time, the source said. And the special education classroom assistants will be more professionalized with an increase of pay for experience and degrees, the source said.

With the current offer, all SEIU employees will see an increase of 16% over a five-year plan and reduced out-of-pocket costs for health care expenses, the source said.

The union says the standing offer isn’t enough.

“We need to have meaningful proposals,” Alcoff said. “Our members voted on the strike for what it didn’t say.”

Another negotiation meeting has not been scheduled, the union said.

On the bus Wednesday, SEIU workers took turns sharing their stories as Chicago Public Schools staff.

“I just want to speak from my heart,” McGrone said, as her co-workers cheered her on and handed her small packets of tissues. “I don’t want to talk about today. I want to talk about my trials, about what I went through.”

McGrone, of Chatham, has been a bus aide for Chicago Public Schools for more than 20 years. She helps students with special needs to and from school, but also works as a medical assistant and home health care aide to pay the bills. She’s working extra hours there now to make up for those lost during the strike.

She said she has to wonder every year if she’ll be chosen to work for CPS for the summer. In 2018, she said she wasn’t.

That’s when money got tight, and McGrone decided to live in her car and had her sons stay with family members. She went to her other jobs and gave back to the family members caring for her children. She still made sure to see them every day. Once school started back, she was able to get an apartment again, she said.

McGrone prides herself on her independence and strength, and said she’s speaking up to fight for the workers.

“I don’t want anyone to experience what I experienced. I don’t think it’s fair,” she said.