CTU charter members to announce strike date against operators
Teachers, support staff will walk out if demands for living wages, adequate student supports, pension rights, protections for immigrant and diverse learners are not met.
CHICAGO—Chicago could be on the cusp of a third strike against charter operators in the current school year, as negotiations drag on with operators of five schools, and four additional schools consider striking this spring. This would be the first multi-employer charter strike in U.S. history.
CTU educators will join City Colleges clerks and technical workers in AFT/IFT Local 1708 at 4:30 PM on Thursday, April 25 at the Arturo Velazquez Westside Technical Institute at 2800 S. Western Ave., where both groups will announce strike dates. Then workers will head two blocks north to Instituto Progresso del Latino’s IHSCA charter campus at 2520 S. Western Ave. to rally.
CTU charter members at two schools run by Instituto Progresso del Latino share a common target with City College clerks. City Colleges chancellor Juan Salgado ran Instituto before he was appointed as top brass at City Colleges. Under his leadership, workers at both shops have gotten the shaft, charge teachers. City Colleges clerks have been without a contract for almost three years, while Instituto under both Salgado and his heirs has steered public dollars away from classroom needs into a bloated bureaucracy and non-educational spending.
The five schools considering striking employ 134 CTU members who educate almost 1,800 students. All five schools voted overwhelmingly to strike earlier this month, with 94 percent of union members voting, and 97 percent voting to strike if there is no progress at the bargaining table.
CTU members are demanding protections built into the contract to provide special education students with the services they both need and are entitled to under federal law. They’re demanding more support for English language learners and immigrant students—including sanctuary protections enshrined in contract language. And union members are demanding adequate staffing and resources for schools that confront serious shortages of both, along with equal pay for equal work with their colleagues in CPS, who teach the same student population for better wages and working conditions.
At ChiArts, which was cofounded by wealthy investment banker Jim Mabie, teachers are also fighting to force the operator to contribute to their pension fund—a move opposed by the board at the same time that Mabie is trying to gut the pensions of striking Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians. Mabie sits on both boards.
High turnover is a chronic issue at the schools, driven by systemic under-resourcing and poor wages and working conditions. Staff churn, which can be upwards of 20% per year or more at some schools, undermines students’ learning conditions and the stability of school communities.
Union charter workers want to reform these practices with these operators as part of an effort to reform the entire charter industry, which chronically undercuts investment in academic programs and student supports while expanding bloated bureaucracies, inflating executive salaries and shunting education dollars into high management fees.
While this number could grow, the schools announcing a strike date include:
- IHSCA, the Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy, which serves more than 700 high school students. City Colleges chancellor Juan Salgado had oversight of IHSCA and Instituto’s other school programs and civic projects, yet failed to ensure that public dollars went into classrooms instead of Instituto’s management expansion and fee structure for ‘managing’ its school portfolio.
- IHSCA is bargaining a joint contract with another small Instituto-controlled school, IJLA, the Instituto Justice Leadership Academy. The school serves just under 100 students aged 17-21 who previously left school and are seeking a high school diploma. Both schools are ovewhelmingly low-income and Latinx, with high percentages of limited English-speaking students.
- ChiArts, where more than 40 teachers are fighting for more classroom resources, and contributions to their pension fund. Management at the publicly funded selective enrollment school of 600 students has refused. Wealthy investment banker and ChiArts’ co-founder Jim Mabie is also treasurer of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s board, where he and his fellow board members are fighting to cancel the pensions of the orchestra’s striking world class musicians, even though moving musicians into a ‘defined contributions’ style plan would be more expensive than the current pension plan.
- Latino Youth High School, or LYHS, run by CMO—charter management organization—Pilsen Wellness Center (PWC), which has demanded a longer school day and school year plus reductions in contractual benefits, while rejecting the union’s demand for equal pay for equal work. The school’s 220 students, who suffer from high rates of trauma, are almost 90% Latinx and 10% Black.
- YCLA—Youth Connection Leadership Academy—where CTU members are bargaining with charter operator YCCS, which, like many operators, has inflated executives positions while shortchanging spending on students’ academic needs. YCLA’s CEO earns almost $180,000 per year and the top deputy makes almost $160,000 per year, while some educators make barely a fifth of that. Management has drawn complaints that range from body-shaming to shortchanging special education students at the overwhelmingly Black, low-income school on Chicago’s South Side.
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The Chicago Teachers Union represents nearly 25,000 teachers and educational support personnel working in schools funded by City of Chicago School District 299, and by extension, the nearly 400,000 students and families they serve. The CTU is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Federation of Teachers and is the third-largest teachers local in the United States. For more information please visit the CTU website at www.ctulocal1.org.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Why would any teacher work at a charter? They are part of the problem. They are complicit. The parents are understandably hoodwinked, but why don’t these teachers know better?
I believe, although there is a notable and growing teacher shortage, that either many charter school teachers are uncredentialed and can’t work at a public school unless their state allows for “interns” whose certifications are in the works, or public school districts simply are not hiring. Many charter school teachers I know fall into both these categories, and the former don’t necessarily wish to go back to school to teach.
Others, like my realtor, found this was the only job available that paid above minimum wage and they needed the work, but plan to move on in a year or two.
Then there is the matter of TFAers who use this as a stepping stone to bigger and better things…
Yes.
I met a TFAer who thought he was the big white god. I felt badly for him because he was so lost and told me he was moving up the ranks to become an administrator. I hope he noticed me cringe.
He may be State Commissioner by now
and those who have that drive now quickly move up into that “administrative” level with so little understanding, so little compassion, so little humility
I’m sorry, but your realtor should stick to…real estate.
“Plan to move on in a year or two”–?!
Again, I’m sorry, but I find that no better than TFA.
Good point.
Ha!!! Well, that certainly throws a monkey wrench into the union-busting agenda!
Next thing you know they’ll abandon charters for vouchers. They are pushing vouchers in many red states. Blue states may drink the poison. Vouchers often get rejected by voters so in Florida the governor is simply bypassing the voters.
Charter school teachers need to get accepted into a teacher education program, take the required courses, student teach and become certified.
Seems to me these charter school ******** (can’t write the word) want their cake and eat it at the ame time.
And I hope Waltons, Gates, and Bloomberg are sh****** quarters galor.e.
Every working person in the United States should stop working for one full day and demand an end to all anti-labor union laws and that every worker is paid a livable wage with medical care.
And if we don’t get what we want, we stop working for one full week at every business that doesn’t do what we want.
Then a month.
And keep escalating until every big corporation that doesn’t cave in goes bankrupt.
This is great news! Go CTUnion teachers! Take the money from the wealthy investment bankers and put it in the schools. When we strike, we win for our schools. Our schools.
Another really great Chicago news item: the Chicago pro-public-ed group, Raise Your Hand (started by parents) is suing the city for the TIF money it’s spending on new, huge, private big $$$$$$ projects that are NOT in areas that should be designated for TIFS, whereby the money be earmarked for CPS.
This might be a first, &, if won, would set a great precedent for this & other cities.
Godspeed to my (broadly speaking) Chicago colleagues.
Amen to that!