Chicago Teachers Union secures clean energy wins in new contract

Yahoo

21-04-2025

The Chicago Teachers Union expects its new, hard-fought contract to help drive clean energy investments and train the next generation of clean energy workers, even as the Trump administration attacks such priorities.
The contract approved by 97% of union members this month represents the first time the union has bargained with school officials specifically around climate change and energy, said union Vice President Jackson Potter. The deal still needs to be approved by the Chicago Board of Education.
If approved, the contract will result in new programs that prepare students for clean energy jobs, developed in collaboration with local labor unions. It mandates that district officials work with the teachers union to seek funding for clean energy investments and update a climate action plan by 2026. And it calls for installing heat pumps and outfitting 30 schools with solar panels — if funding can be secured.
During almost a year of contentious negotiations, the more than 25,000-member union had also demanded paid climate-educator positions, an all-electric school bus fleet, and that all newly constructed schools be carbon-free. While those provisions did not end up in the final agreement, leaders say the four-year contract is a 'transformative' victory that sets the stage for more ambitious demands next time.
'This contract is setting the floor of what we hope we can accomplish,' said Lauren Bianchi, who taught social studies at George Washington High School on the city's South Side for six years before becoming green schools organizer for the union. 'It shows we can win on climate, even despite Trump.'
The climate-related provisions are part of what the Chicago Teachers Union and an increasing number of unions nationwide refer to as 'common good' demands, meant to benefit not only their members in the workplace but the entire community. In this and its 2019 contract, the Chicago union also won 'common good' items such as protections for immigrant students and teachers, and affordable housing–related measures. The new contract also guarantees teachers academic freedom at a time when the federal government is trying to limit schools from teaching materials related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
'Black history, Indigenous history, climate science — that's protected instruction now,' said Potter.
Chicago Public Schools did not respond to emailed questions for this story, except to forward a press release that did not mention clean energy provisions.
The union crafted its proposals based on discussions with three environmental and community organizations, Bianchi said — the Southeast Environmental Task Force, People for Community Recovery, and ONE Northside.
The Southeast Environmental Task Force led the successful fight to ban new petcoke storage in Chicago, and the group's co-executive director Olga Bautista is also vice president of the 21-member school board. People for Community Recovery was founded by Hazel Johnson, who is often known as 'the mother of the environmental justice movement.' And ONE Northside emphasizes the link between clean energy and affordable housing.
Clean energy job training was a priority for all three of the organizations, Potter said.
Under the contract, the union and district officials will work with other labor unions to create pre-apprenticeship programs for students, which are crucial to entering the union-dominated building trades to install solar, do energy-efficiency overhauls, and electrify homes with heat pumps and other technology. The contract demands the district create one specific new clean energy jobs pathway program during each year of the four-year contract.
It also mandates renovating schools for energy efficiency and installing modern HVAC systems, and orders the school district to work with trade unions to create opportunities for Chicago Public Schools students and graduates to be hired for such work.
'The people in the community have identified jobs and economic justice as being essential for environmental justice,' said Bianchi. 'I've mostly taught juniors and seniors; a lot expressed frustration that college is not their plan. They wish they could learn job skills to enter a trade.'
Installing solar could help the district meet its clean energy goals, which include sourcing 100% of its electricity from renewables by this year.
The district has invested more than $6 million in energy efficiency and efficient lighting since 2018, and cut its carbon dioxide emissions by more than 27,000 metric tons, school district spokesperson Evan Moore told Canary Media last fall as contract negotiations were proceeding.
The schools are eligible for subsidized solar panels under the state Illinois Shines program, and they can tap the federal 30% investment tax credit for solar arrays, with a new direct-pay option tailored to tax-exempt organizations like schools.
The union contract's climate stance represents a 'reversal of what's happening at the federal level,' said Potter. 'It's decreasing dependency on fossil fuels, ensuring the district is moving toward more environmentally efficient practices.'
While the future of federal clean-energy tax credits is in doubt under the Trump administration, Illinois elected officials and advocates say the state's clean energy transition will continue thanks to ambitious state laws — including a major new energy bill before the legislature.
'As [Chicago Public Schools] is facing many financial woes, we see solar and lowering energy costs as a way we can actually save money that we can then use to prevent layoffs and staff programs,' said Bianchi.
The contract also calls for upgraded windows and HVAC in all schools, as funding permits, which would boost energy efficiency, union leaders said. And it mandates more transparency from the district about the progress of building work orders, which Potter said will help the community track energy-efficiency investments. With school buildings that are 83 years old on average, such overhauls are crucial both to saving money on energy bills and keeping conditions adequate for learning. In 2012, the teachers union went on strike and ultimately won guarantees for air conditioning in all schools, where students and teachers had been sweltering in aging buildings without functioning AC.
Moore said the district is committed to another program that the teachers had demanded, though it did not end up in the contract: the creation of community resiliency centers at schools, where residents can stay warm or cool during extreme weather. Moore noted that Chicago Public Schools received a federal Renew America's Schools grant in 2024 that will help prepare 20 schools for that role.
The district also received federal funds last year to purchase 50 electric buses under the Clean School Bus program. The city said it worked closely with the union on the application, and Potter added that contract provisions, including formation of a joint Green Schools and Climate Change Preparedness Committee, ensure the union can work with the district to seek additional funds for electric buses.
In recent years the teachers union was deeply involved in a successful fight to prevent a polluting metal shredder's move from a wealthy North Side neighborhood to the low-income community where George Washington High School is located. The campaign, led in part by now–school board Vice President Bautista, resulted in an agreement between the state and federal government meant to prevent development of new polluting sources in environmental justice communities.
'We're treated as the city's dumping ground, but with the community's organizing power, history, and legacy of resistance, ultimately the community won,' said George Washington High teacher Kevin Moore, who talks about environmental justice and climate change in his courses, including human geography.
The union demanded during bargaining that George Washington High and at least two other schools be replaced with new carbon-free buildings. The contract ultimately has no such promises but says any new school buildings should 'aspire to be carbon-free.'
Other unions nationwide have also included climate provisions in their demands, including under the 'common good' banner. The Los Angeles teachers union UTLA has for several years made climate justice a successful plank in its contract negotiations, building on its common good advocacy for racial justice and citing blistering heat and wildfire smoke that affect local schools.
In February 2020, 4,000 janitors who were members of Minneapolis' SEIU Local 26 union held a one-day 'climate strike' — joined by students and other community groups — demanding greener cleaning practices and action by banks and other companies to reduce emissions in corporate buildings. After walking off the job, the janitors succeeded in enshrining some climate-related measures in their contract.
'Helping both the larger community and our members to see the union as a vehicle to win on other issues is critical to the survival of organized labor,' wrote two SEIU Local 26 officials and a high school student in a joint essay in Labor Notes, highlighting that more than 40% of the union's members reported that climate change has impacted their families.
The United Auto Workers union has supported Environmental Protection Agency vehicle emissions limits and the electric vehicle transition.
'A lot of people see this as a new thing we're doing,' Bianchi said of the Chicago Teachers Union's focus on energy and climate. 'However, as a history teacher, I want to point out that health and safety is something that unions have always fought for. The farmworkers were fighting against toxic chemicals. Mineworkers were fighting for safety. This isn't just an issue that intersects with our working conditions and the broader public good. It really is both.'
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