Editorial: Is CTU's playbook coming to a school district near you, Illinoisans?
Most Illinoisans think CTU-style teachers union tactics are limited to Chicago. But will that stay the case?
In an estimated 52 school districts across Illinois, contracts with unions affiliated with the Illinois Federation of Teachers are expiring this year. Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates serves as executive vice president at the IFT. So is there reason to worry that other IFT affiliates will adopt Chicago's aggressive 'bargaining for the common good' model?
Here's some background. Local teachers unions fall under the umbrella of state- and national-level unions. For example, CTU Local 1 is an affiliate of IFT. IFT is the state affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, which is one of the two major national teachers unions, the other being the National Education Association. While both are aligned with Democratic causes, AFT is generally more progressive and politically aggressive. Its longtime president, Randi Weingarten, is a political lightning rod.
IFT has affiliates all over the state, including Chicago, Quincy, East St. Louis and Peoria, as well as a number of Chicago suburbs. IFT doesn't run local contract negotiations but heavily influences them by providing legal, financial, tactical and ideological support. The Illinois Policy Institute, which analyzed districts' affiliations and negotiation schedules, has argued these districts should be prepared for aggressive negotiation tactics.
That's a reasonable concern. After all, we just lived through the most recent CTU contract negotiation, which featured repeated CTU-encouraged attempts by Mayor Brandon Johnson, former CTU organizer and staunch union ally, to fire the CEO of Chicago Public Schools. That CEO, Pedro Martinez, had the temerity to refuse to give in to every one of the union's demands.
We still haven't forgotten the tensions that arose from previous negotiations, especially in 2012 when this militant version of the CTU first emerged, waging a prolonged, large-scale strike that saw teachers and CTU supporters take en masse to the streets.
More recently, as the latest contract negotiations were just beginning, Davis Gates half-jokingly informed a March 2024 City Club of Chicago audience that the city's moneyed interests ought to be prepared to pony up '$50 billion and 3 cents' to pay for the union's demands.
It struck us as poignant that Davis Gates returned to the City Club Monday making similar statements, albeit with somewhat less bravado.
What a difference a year makes. The CTU president's extreme message increasingly is falling on deaf ears. The mayor she played such an important role in electing in 2023 is unpopular and struggling to wrangle the City Council to support his priorities. Chicagoans last year elected their own school board members for the first time ever, and CTU's endorsed candidates fared poorly.
In short, a union that turned itself into a political machine is itself unpopular and significantly weakened. Teachers unions once could count on majority support from the public. CTU's favorables are well under water, testifying to just how much the union has overreached.
On Monday, Davis Gates didn't do herself or her cause any favors with provocative messaging about how Chicago's children are CTU's kids, too. That sort of rhetoric might land better coming from a more traditional teachers union focused mainly on the classroom, but not from this messianic group of ultra-leftists.
She also showed a continued disregard for CPS' dismal fiscal situation, pushing once again for reckless borrowing to plug a $529 million budget deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
'These are not math problems,' she said.
Actually, they are math problems. And the union's refusal to face hard numbers contributes to the district's ongoing fiscal strain, which ultimately affects classroom conditions.
CTU's 'bargaining for the common good' approach extends well beyond wages and benefits. The union's recent demands included climate initiatives like solar panels and electric buses, 10,000 affordable housing units, police-free schools and limits on charter schools — a sweeping political agenda inappropriately sought through union negotiations.
In the end — in no small part due to the Chicago voters' rejection of CTU's agenda via the November school board elections — CPS teachers ratified a contract that largely mirrored what CPS leadership had offered for months. Union members' unfortunate reelection a few months ago of Davis Gates as their president only makes it highly likely we'll revisit this radical agenda four years from now in yet another fraught contract negotiation.
So here's where we differ with the Illinois Policy argument. We just can't imagine the CTU agenda playing with either school boards or the broader communities in the suburbs and downstate. Time will tell.
What will bargaining for the common good look like in downstate Joppa, where an IFT affiliate represents local teachers? That district sits in Massac County, along the Kentucky state line, where 74% of votes cast in 2024 went to President Donald Trump.
Or Quincy School District 172, where Trump won nearly 73% of the 2024 vote.
'Trump has picked his side. … He is here to win the relitigation of the Civil War and finish the work of the Confederacy,' Davis Gates said Monday.
Equating support for Trump with Confederate sympathizing is inflammatory and likely to alienate residents in the very communities where IFT affiliates will be bargaining.
The point we're making is that there's a mismatch between IFT's modus operandi and the politics of many of the suburban and downstate districts where they'll be negotiating soon.
Still, in many conservative areas, schools are among the largest employers, making it likelier that, at least on the wages and benefits side of contract negotiations, IFT's influence could mean significant costs for suburban and downstate taxpayers. Downstate teachers aren't nearly as well compensated as Chicago teachers. The median CPS teacher will be paid $98,000 next year.
So as these negotiations begin in places politically and culturally distinct from Chicago, local taxpayers and school boards would be wise to pay attention.
Attend school board meetings. Ask questions. And learn from Chicago's example.
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