HOD Feb

Report on the Meeting of the House of Delegates on February 3, 2021

By George Milkowski

Please note:  Because of the COVID 19 pandemic, this meeting was conducted as a webinar via a video conference

The meeting began at 6:07 p.m..

I. Officer Reports

A. Recording Secretary Christel Williams-Hayes – Christel reported that although we are still arguing with the CPS over in person learning, the Board has provided a link for staff to help sign up for getting the vaccine.

B. Financial Report Kathy Catalano – Kathy said that the Union has been receiving dues payments from the Board and due to savings generated by the results of the pandemic “lockdown’ we have about $500,000 more in the bank than expected.

C. Recording Secretary Maria Moreno – Our membership is currently 28,147, of which 1,749 are retiree members.  There will be a Zoom meeting on February 22 from 3:30-4:30 p.m. to have nominations for retiree delegates.

D. Vice President Stacy Davis Gates  - Stacy said that bargaining with the CPS has been very difficult and said she can’t really call anything gained a “win”.  Instead she will call them “results”.  She said there has been some movement by the Board e.g., the CPS offered clerks a chance to sign up for COVID vaccinations.  “Our resolve and our solidarity is the only thing that will make us win”.

II. President’s Report – Jesse Sharkey

Pres. Sharkey said the CPS did nothing for months in negotiations until January 4 when CTU members refused to enter into the buildings.  Lightfoot drew a line in the sand but has backed down three times on locking out teachers.  

Jesse said there are difficulties in holding a strike now.  The weather is a factor plus we would have a hard time in determining who is a scab if they work on-line.  Also, some parents are threatening to sue the CTU.

Jesse then referred to graphs showing CTU and CPS positions and their evolution over the past few weeks and he asked delegates to vote yes or no on their feelings on the various issues.  There was confusion on these “temperature checks” and some delegates felt they were expressing their feelings on the CPS position and others thought it was on the CTU positions.  This wasn’t cleared up until the third poll was taken.

There have been some agreements.  The Union wants us to return to in person work when the positivity rate is less than 3% and there are less than 20 new cases per 100,000 people every two weeks.  The CPS will help co-ordinate the vaccination of 1,500 CTU members every week, with a proportional increase in that number as more vials of the vaccine are made available.”   The CPS will also conduct “surveillance testing” and if there are three unrelated cases found in a school, that school would be closed for two weeks.

Regarding the vaccines, the CPS wants to use the 1,500 shots per week to be targeted to those teachers who have been accommodated to work from home due to underlying health issues in themselves or their families.  After receiving just one dose, the accommodated teachers would be required to return to the classroom.

Accommodation for staff will continue only for those who are considered high risk.  Tele-work will continue for 20% of the staff with a household member who is at risk.  (It is unclear how that 20% will be determined).  Those who are unwilling to return to work would be offered unpaid, job protected leave but would have to return to the buildings after receiving one dose of the vaccine.

The Board and Union disagree on testing.  The Board wants to test all asymptomatic students and staff, test 100% of in person employees in high risk neighbor-hoods and test 50% in all other neighborhoods, offer testing to all staff who want it before returning to in person work and offer testing to all students over 10 years old upon return to in person learning.  Delegate Jennifer Jones raised a concern over the validity of the tests.

There has been movement on each school having a safety committee headed by the delegate along with three other CTU members, the principal, and the school engineer. Rooms that don’t meet appropriate standards would be excluded from use.

The Union would like improvements in remote learning, which the CPS is opposing.  Will Reed, delegate from Brooks College Prep, feels that current CPS rules are too confining.

There has been agreement on PPE for all who work and especially for those who need it for special jobs.  The CPS asserts that it has all necessary PPE on hand.  (Yeah, as if we can actually trust the Board on this)!.

III. Department/Committee Reports

A. CTU-ACTS – Chris Baehrend – Chris reported that some of the charter operators are already complying with the demands of the CTU while others are taking a hard line stance in line with the Board.  He also said Latino Youth School, where Chris works, ordered its teachers to go into their buildings 23 weeks ago, and for 23 weeks those teachers have held strong and have refused to do and there have been no repercussions.

B. Organizing – Casey Sweeney– Casey urged delegates to hold a daily union “huddle”, fill out a daily report for the Union, and get the CTU toolkits into the hands of picket captains.

C. Grievance –Debby Pope– Debby is also a class size co-ordinator and said that starting February 4, principals will be told to hire 271 more teachers in 167 different schools along with more support staff.  This is due to the class size provisions in the contract, some of which kicked in automatically. 

D. Political/Legislative - Kurt Hilgendorf – Kurt started off lauding those gutsy individuals who gained national attention by teaching outside from computers in cold weather in front of their schools; ignoring instructions to report for in person learning.  Even Fox News – Channel 32 – had to report that ¾ of parents were supporting our position on this.  He mentioned that our position vis-à-vis the CPS can be strengthened when the Governor signs the bill that would repeal the 4.5 Amendatory Act and restore our Union’s full bargaining rights.  

V. New Business/Questions and Answers

Delegate Dave Miller asked once in person learning resumes, what should members do if they find there are no air purifiers in classrooms.  Jesse responded that the delegate should ask the principal as to their whereabouts and then probably walk out of the building.

Frank MacDonald, Washington High, motioned to have the CTU give a one time $2,000 check to those few individuals who have been locked out of remote learning and are not being paid because they are at work.  (Jesse sent the motion to committee arguing that there were legal questions. CTU has created a GoFundMe Page to support teachers who have not gotten paid due to their refusal to return after the Winter Break.)