BLOG | Chicago Teachers Union Bulldozes Path to $50B Contract

by Angela Morabito

When the entire Chicago school board resigned last week, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) had reason to celebrate. The union now controls the mayor, who controls the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) school board, which will soon control the CEO, who decides whether or not the union will be granted a radical new contract packed with $50 billion worth of goodies.

Until those seven school board members stepped down, the union had a problem on its hands: It had made little progress in negotiating for its contract demands, which include 9% across-the-board raises, cash payments to illegal immigrants, kicking police out of schools, an all-electric bus fleet, and the hiring of nearly 5,000 more CPS employees despite declining enrollment. 

These giveaways don’t come cheap. CPS estimates that fulfilling just 52 of the union’s 700 demands would put the district in a $2.9 billion deficit next school year. Meanwhile, CPS spends more than almost any other school system in the country – nearly $30,000 per student per year – and achieves abysmal results. More than 40 Chicago schools had zero students test proficient in math last year.

The math proficiency crisis evidently extends to the mayor’s office. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CTU organizer propelled into office by CTU dollars, sees no problem with the union’s demands. He even wants the district to take out a $300 million high interest loan to help cover the costs.

But Johnson alone cannot make the contract a reality. He needs cooperation from the CEO of Chicago Public Schools.

That cooperation has yet to materialize. CEO Pedro Martinez, who was appointed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, doesn’t want to commit the financial malpractice that Johnson and the CTU want. CTU President Stacy Davis Gates called Martinez “insubordinate” after he pushed back against the union’s financial demands. In doing so, the union boss said the quiet part out loud: She believes the district’s CEO works for her.

Getting Martinez out of the union’s way would require a school board vote, plus six months’ notice unless he is fired for cause. The former school board members, all but one of whom are Johnson appointees, refused to fire him. Rather than cave to pressure from Johnson’s office, they resigned all at once.

The mass resignation was a show of opposition, but it also handed Johnson the power to appoint an all-new board. He wasted no time selecting board members who are favorable to the CTU and therefore likely hostile to Martinez.

One new appointee, Deborah Pope, used to be on the CTU’s payroll as a “class size coordinator and grievance correspondent.” Another, Olga Bautista, called herself an “eco-warrior” and “socialist” in a now-defunct Twitter profile. The seventh appointee, Rafael Yáñez, accepted a $20,000 donation from the CTU during his run for Alderman in 2019.

Johnson has limited time to get the board to fire Martinez. In January 2025, a hybrid elected-appointed school board will take office. For now, he is resisting any good-faith civic exercises aimed at protecting the integrity of the bargaining process.

Johnson insists that the outgoing and incoming board members need not appear at a hearing about the school board overhaul. He also refused to let the new appointees answer reporters’ questions about whether they support his high interest loan idea. At the same press conference, Johnson likened opponents of the union to supporters of slavery.

His political games have worked so far. If and when the board fires Martinez, the CTU will have total control over negotiations because it will have control of the negotiators. Simply put, the CTU will be bargaining with itself.

Any negotiations that happen under these conditions will be a profoundly un-democratic farce. There is no bargaining when both sides of the table are playing for the same team. Students, families, and taxpayers are mere inconveniences to the union machine, which will force Chicagoans to write bigger checks while student learning continues to suffer.