Pension Election

Chicago Teachers Pension Fund Election Heating Up

By Jim Vail

The three minority trustees censured by CTPF were teacher trustees Gervaise
Clay, not running for re-election, Tina Padilla, elected last October and
retiree trustee Maria Rodriguez, running for re-elction. 

The Chicago Teachers Pension Fund election this November is heating up big time with visions of the last exciting Chicago Teachers Union election in 2010 when CORE ran against four different caucuses.

Core was able to win the election in a run-off after getting the second most votes for president because the ruling party UPC split after President Marilyn Stewart forced out her Vice President Ted Dallas.

The pension fund election is shaping up to be no less exciting and important for a battered board of directors where infighting and charges of racism and misogyny have resulted in four trustees who were censured or reprimanded.

The two current teacher trustees who will not run in the October election are Jim Cavallero and Gervaise Clay. Cavallero voted in favor of the resolution to censure Clay because of alleged unprofessional conduct that she said she was not made aware of. The charges were suspiciously reminiscent of a nightmare Kafka novel where the main character is brought to trial on charges he knew nothing about. 

Cavallero also works for the Chicago Teachers Union as an organizer and according to board records missed many trustee meetings.

Core, the CTU's party headed by President Jesse Sharkey, will run two teacher candidates - Tammie Vinson and Quentin Washington. Vinson was an original member of Core and has served on the human rights committee as well as other groups and ran for alderwoman. Washington was a vocal activist teacher during the brief work stoppage demanding better safety conditions in the schools before returning to work. He was interviewed by the mainstream media and eloquently articulated the union's position about the concerns teachers and staff had about returning to work amidst the pandemic last year.

The Members First caucus will run Victor Ochoa and Karyn Aguirre. Ochoa ran for Vice President against Stacy Davis Gates and lost in the last CTU election. Aguirre is a clinician and running in her first election for pension fund trustee.

Both caucuses are fielding two minority candidates for the two vacant active teacher trustee positions on the board at a time when President Jeffery Blackwell has accused the pension fund of rampant racism and misogyny. However, he chose to attack three minority trustees, two from his own political party.  

The retirees will also get to vote for three retiree teacher trustee positions on the board of directors. The three current trustees are all running to retain their seats. Two of the retirees, Maria Rodriguez and Mary Sharon Reilly, have been attacked by Blackwell after the board voted to censure Rodriguez for unprofessional behavior and reprimand Reilly for making racist comments.

Core's three endorsed candidates for the retiree positions are Reilly, Lois Nelson, a current retiree trustee who chose not to vote to censure the trustees, and Larry Milkowski. Milkowski is a retired teacher from Carver Military Academy, and his brother George Milkowski currently serves as a CTU retiree delegate where he reports out on the delegates meetings.

Maria Rodriguez is the only candidate running as an independent. She formerly was a member of the UPC party until it folded after Core's upset in 2010. 

Rodriguez and Reilly both served as presidents of the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund in the past and have the most experience.

Members First will field three retiree pension trustee candidates: Therese Boyle, who ran for CTU President in the last election and lost, Kathleen Cleary, who runs the Members First Facebook page, and Regina O'Connor, who headed the CTU Legislative Committee until she resigned. All three were recently elected as CTU retiree delegates. 

MF is running three white candidates, while Core is running two white candidates for retiree trustee. The two minority candidates are Lois Nelson and Maria Rodriguez.

The question for many will be what are their positions in terms of the political infighting on the board, and will they support a forensic audit of the pension fund that Core's Blackwell now opposes and Members First Phil Weiss also does not support after he voted to abstain. The audit is very important as the fund's resources and funding continue to dwindle amidst political and corporate attacks on public pensions.

 

Whistle Blower

CTPF Whistleblower Complaints Looking Suspicious

By Jim Vail 

The four CTPF trustees who attended the recent Callan
Investment conference in Salt Lake City (Jerry Travlos,
principal, Phil Weiss, Jeffery Blackwell, Jacqueline Price-Ward ) all voted to
censure three female minority trustees.

National Whistleblower Appreciation Day was celebrated on July 30 to recognize whistleblowers whose actions have protected the American people from fraud or malfeasance. 

Chicago Teachers Pension Fund President Jeffery Blackwell and the board took action against four female trustees - almost a quarter of the trustees who serve - because of numerous whistleblower complaints against them. 

Except these complaints did not expose fraud or corruption, but rather racist and unprofessional conduct on the part of trustees toward staff members of the pension fund, according to Blackwell. 

"There is a culture of intimidation, intentional misinformation, discrimination, slander, misogyny, fear-mongering, blatant racism, sexism and retaliatory actions from trustees toward staff and vendors," Blackwell said at the August 2020 board meeting. 

He told the board last year that he reviewed audio of verbal abuse from trustees to staff during board and committee meetings and that he himself, the first African-American male to become president of the board, has been on the receiving end of "sabotage, intimidation and racist comments from individuals I believed were my colleagues and friends."

"I have witnessed former trustees slander, harass and defame vendors simply because they can," he said.

He said there were at least 12 active whistleblower complaints from staff against current trustees.

Phil Weiss, newly elected trustee,  then made a motion that was passed to censure Trustees Gervaise Clay, Tina Padilla and Maria Rodriguez - all women of color, and had it published in the CTPF newsletter. Trustee Mary Sharon Reilly, a white female, was reprimanded for racism.

The pictures of the trustees were not published in the newsletter, leading some to speculate that it doesn't look good to show that the racists and misogynists he insisted permeate the board are in fact women of color. 

Can a female person of color be accused of misogyny and racism toward others such as Blackwell and pension fund employees?

The whistleblower complaints have been vague and the censures only listed unprofessional and disrespectful behavior.

Whistleblower complaints from people like Julian Assange and WikiLeaks exposed US military crimes against civilians in Iraq. They usually involve criminal and financial crimes made by those in power.

One whistleblower case at the teachers pension fund that exposed financial fraud involved a current African American male fund employee who uncovered accounting irregularities that resulted in retaliation, according to the current lawsuit filed.

This complaint was against the management of the fund and not trustees. While Blackwell has focused on punishing trustees based on whistleblower complaints, are there also other complaints against the board's leadership team employed at the fund or even Blackwell himself? And if so, why has the board refused to take action against those people as well?  

According to Trustee Maria Rodriguez, there were a lot of whistleblower complaints made against the leadership team at the fund that have not been addressed. 

"During the last year and a half more than forty-one whistleblower complaints have been filed against the leadership team of the Chicago Pension," Rodriguez told the board at the September, 2020 meeting. "The whistleblower complaints filed by the workers have been completely neglected and no action has been taken by the full Board."

"Members are not receiving the same level of service they deserve and received in the past," she said. "I believe some of the statements made were only citing negativity toward other trustees."

In many instances members wait years to have their pensions finalized and instead receive an estimated pension. This information can be found in the board minutes under Report of Committee on Claims and Services Credit (Pensions Finalized).

The trustees Blackwell selected to prosecute have questioned the board and its employees and have voted against Blackwell many times. 

Can we say it's a political witch-hunt, and the term whistle blower has been twisted to protect those at the top against the people it is supposed to protect. 

Teachers Rights

WHY DON"T TEACHERS FIGHT FOR THEIR RIGHTS?

By Stephen Wilson

 

 

It appears to puzzle many! It is like a inexplicable conundrum. Why do Russian school teachers put up with so much? They are constantly humiliated and insulted from all sides, are overworked, abused and obtain low pay. They are neither respected by the government, parents, pupils and the press. Why put up with all this? And why don't they at least fight back or go on strike? In actual fact the explanation is quite clear and does not require any search for profound causes.

 

Firstly, it never occurs to some people that a school teacher lacks 'a free choice' as to what work he can choose, especially if she works in a village where there is practically no alternative work available if say a local factory or plant has long closed down. So when those school teachers claim "Where can I go to find work except at school?" They are simply acknowledging the banal reality. It is not because they are 'inadequate' or 'losers' but because there is simply no alternative work available. 

The fact that around 91% of school teachers are women {in some surveys such as in Vladivostock 2018} and their average age is 50 makes them less attractive to potential employers. The idiotic proposals that teachers should marry rich people {Most males are not well off anyway} or go out and buy and sell on the local market {local people are so poor they don't have a disposable enough income to buy many goods } represent an insult to basic human intelligence.

 

Secondly, many of those school teachers are in debt. They have taken out credit to purchase cars, medicine and to send their children to colleges and institutes of further education. In some rural areas possessing a car is a necessity because there is no state transport available. They are also helping their children pay off their mortgages with the aid of their income, pension and credit. In a word they are making an immense sacrifice for the sake of their children. In deed they are much more resourceful and frugal with their money than the government that has the nerve to give them patronizing lectures on how to make ends meet.

 

Thirdly, many of them have reached such an age that it is difficult to change their profession. They are already used to working in school. They are set in their ways. Abiding by a set routine provides them with a sense of comfort and security. Some critics have compared working in a school to a swamp. It is almost impossible to struggle your way out of it once you have fallen in. And there are actually teachers who like their job despite the low pay and abysmal conditions. They simply attain job satisfaction. They get on well with the administration and like children.

 

Fourthly, many of these struggling teachers have never heard of the teachers trade Union 'Teacher'. Many teachers in parts of Russia are unaware that there even exists a trade union for teachers. Their experience of trade unions has not been reassuring. During the Soviet Union most trade unions were corrupt and a pillar of the establishment rather than genuinely interested in defending teachers. Some teachers who are aware remember how there were so many past strikes of school teachers in the 1990's to the present that did not seem to have achieved much in improving their status and pay. They think that going on strike is such a risk they could lose everything including their jobs. The game is not worth the candle. They are unaware of some of the significant achievements of the trade union Teacher, in terms of successfully fighting unfair dismissal cases and defeating measures to cut pay. Given the insecurity of work, it is understandable that so many school teachers view joining a union or embarking on a protest as a reckless risk. Perhaps economic conditions need to reach a very dire state before school teachers are ready to take to the barricades. Therefore we should never presume Russian school teachers will remain so passive. After all, you can only push people so far!

Strange Teachings

STRANGE MEETINGS 

How teachers can find themselves facing false allegations.

By Stephen Wilson

 

"When I was tutoring some children I found myself in some very unexpected situations which were very unpleasant. Once I was invited to teach the child of some rich parents. I was asked why I wanted to work and I honestly explained I badly needed the money while moving to a new apartment. Soon afterwards the mother of the child I was teaching complained that her very expensive ring had gone missing. This mother had looked for it everywhere, but could not find it. So they started to accuse me of taking it asking, "Do you know where this ring is? Have you taken it? " I felt very anxious. Then the mother finally found the ring. It turned out she had placed it in the pocket of her fur coat and forgotten where she had put it. But I was so stressed out by all this!

 

"That is not the only situation I found myself in. I had been teaching the children of parents for 7 years. They were very rich and I was well paid for my lessons. I thought suspicion would fall upon me again when the parents discovered that the mother had found that someone had been stealing money from her handbag which she had placed on the sofa. But this time there were no accusations because they had placed surveillance cameras in every room which revealed that their own daughter had been taking the money from her mother's handbag. Before, I always felt nervous about a room full of surveillance cameras watching me, but after this I now feel more comfortable because those cameras helped prove that I was innocent. The surveillance cameras saved me!" stated 'Olga', a Russian tutor of French based in Moscow to Second City Teachers who would prefer not to reveal her real name. 

Olga told me that because of such situations she would refuse to teach some potential pupils regardless of how much money she receives. 

"It is often not worth the stress," she said.

Although it is important to acknowledge that those situations are not typical and are exceptional, they serve as a warning that teachers and tutors might inadvertently find themselves being accused of crimes they did not commit or be the victims of a crime. Teachers have to be on their guard. Second City Teachers have covered many stories of how teachers were falsely accused of either crimes or unprofessional behavior. A teacher can be unlucky to find him or herself  in a very tricky and strange scenario. For instance, if you have been teaching long enough you are bound to encounter a situation where at least one pupil physically threatens or actually assaults you.  

Around twenty years ago while I was working for a company called Language Link my boss told me I had to help supervise a trial exam of the First certificate exam in English. My boss scolded me for not coming in on the weekend and told me, "One of the school students I had to supervise started to swear and went mad. He attacked me and only the intervention of the other students who held on to him and took him out saved me. I was trembling all over from the shock". I personally found the main problem was some drunk students who had come to lessons and were aggressive, but this was a rare event.

 

Nevertheless, after hearing those stories it is not difficult to understand why a teacher could find him or herself in a difficult situation or even under arrest due to false allegations. It is quite possible that some children who don't particular want lessons, might attempt to discredit their tutors in order to end lessons. What is worrying is how impressionable some people can be in regard to even believing insinuations, and gossip never mind serious allegations. 

A tutor might give a lesson and not even be paid because the student took a dislike to him or her. That is why many tutors will only agree to teach students if they pay in advance. Daniel Ogan, an American storyteller and former English teacher in Moscow, told me that he did this. He stated that a few times when he had got the student to pay in advance for a course of lessons they simply did not turn up! He received money for nothing. More often, it is the opposite. Once when I had taught English to some boy for a whole term and went to collect my pay I discovered the office of the company who paid me had simply vanished into thin air. I could never find them and was never paid! When I was working for one foreign language company 20 years ago I recall teachers from Britain complaining how difficult it was to get paid at one school. So the teachers warned each other never to do any work in this school least they not get paid. 

Once when I was working at one school and the American boss tried to underpay me by less than half. I was surprised at how little he had paid me and reminded him of the exact sum I was due. He answered, "I thought you were another teacher called such and such. I'm very sorry I mixed up the names". I was not entirely convinced because I doubted anyone could be so stupid and there was something pretentious about his voice. This very American whom I won't name had told people in the company that he had never returned to America because all his family had been killed in a plane accident and he felt traumatized about it. Soon after this I read a notice in the school staff room that he had 'not been fired' but 'transferred' to a less senior position in the company. The other teachers read the notice very cynically. I wondered what had happened! Then another teacher from England told me that there were rumors that he had been fired for illicitly taking money from the accounts. What was sinister was the written notices he had put up on the walls of school staff rooms warning 'Unless you come to obtain you salary on this particular date you won't won't receive your pay'. So what did he do with the pay of a teacher who did not turn up? Should I say any more. He also printed a code of conduct where teachers were warned not to take bribes from students, or even have dates with other members of staff. Everyone ignored this last demand and went on dating as usual as there was nothing in Russian law which forbade this. After this concealed scandal I was double careful. Every time I came to the office to obtain my salary in cash I meticulously checked it to the exasperation of the new boss who happened to be completely honest and must have felt uncomfortable that I didn't even trust her.

 

Olga told me she had to teach a professional prostitute and her daughter French. She told me, "The mother was very good and really cared about her daughter's education. And I remember that everything worked out for the mother as she got married, and was lucky to do well. Her daughter was a good student."

 

You can never be certain what student you might be teaching. About 20 years ago I was asked to teach English to what I suspected might be a prostitute. The woman knew no English and was very pleasant and polite. When I entered her room in a block of flats I noticed how there were crystal globes, pebbles, plants and anti-stress things to make guests comfortable. I later learnt she often got very threatening phone calls from someone and seemed to be in danger. During the second and last lesson she had packed her suitcase and was leaving for some unknown destination. She seemed in a frantic hurry. While I was going down the stairs I was confronted by a rude man who asked "Who are you? Show me your passport?" I retorted, "You don't have the legal right to make such a request. And this is none of your business." The guy pursued me cursing, swearing and gesturing at me. I rushed out and also found my student with a suitcase on the pavement below. I now understood why she might not want to hang about in this building. She had my sympathy.

 

So yes, like Olga, I have found myself in difficult situations, but not quite as bad as being wrongly accused of theft. So as teachers, we learn to take nothing for granted. In this regard it is worth recalling a short story by Chekhov where a poor governess is accused of doing things she never actually did by the father of her pupils. All those allegations were false and the father later told the governess, "I was just testing you to see whether you would stand up for your rights. Why didn't you fight harder to counter the allegations? You are too soft to be a governess". So she fails the stupid test and is sent away. The Chekhov story serves to indicate how capricious some parents can be and in Olga's case, where fiction and fact might easily coincide! The unpleasantly unexpected can easily arise! So we should be ready for anything.

CTU Pension

CTU Pension Fund Forum Highlights CTPF Successes & Challenges

By Jim Vail

CTPF Trustee Jaqueline Price-Ward

The Chicago Teachers Union hosted an online forum entitled 'Making pension funds work for educators and communities' on August 11 that touted the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund's success with hiring minorities and divesting in hedge funds.

The virtual workshop discussed how pension funds are invested in companies that destroy the environment and harm communities.

"Public pensions are the biggest investors in fossil fuels," said Elizabeth Parisian, a pension specialist for the American Federation of Teachers.

The panelists included AFT's Parisian, CTPF Trustee Jaqueline Price-Ward, and former CTPF President Jay Rehak.

Hedge funds are run by Wall Street billionaires and are known to charge excessive fees. The CTPF was the first public pension fund to stop investing with hedge funds. However, why is the CTPF investing in KKR, a notorious private equity fund that organized a buyout of RJR Nabisco that resulted in thousands of layoffs and disrupted lives. 

The panelists said the CTPF has only invested $23 million in KKR, which is considered a small amount in the $13 billion pension fund's portfolio. If teachers and other stakeholders in CTPF do not like certain companies, they need to express their opposition and put pressure on the fund to divest.

"Trustees can only invest in what is being offered to us by our consultants and staff," Price-Ward said.

Former President Jay Rehak said the CTPF is the second oldest pension fund in the country and is one of the only funds run by teachers. He noted that the fund is a national leader in diversity, earned a whopping 28% return this year and were the first to stop investing in private prisons.

"We have a lot of power," Rehak said. "We act and a lot of people follow."

He said it is important to let their consultants and investment managers know what are the fund's priorities. They decided to divest from gun manufacturers despite earning a 29% return, and Navient, a rapacious student loan operator.

"I'd rather invest with people who aren't trying to kill us," Rehak said.

Rehak said the CTPF has invested in one company where they discovered the workers were on strike, and once they voiced their concerns the strike ended in a week. Rehak also made sure the fund cut its ties with companies that were supporting charter schools after he was first elected in 2009.

At the Callan Pension Fund Conference in Salt Lake City last week, the topic was raised about the concern with fossil fuel investments.

Former CTU Recording Secretary Michael Brunson, who retired a year ago, told the workshop that he worked at Nabisco when it suffered the KKR buyout. He said the difference between private equity funds and hedge funds is similar to the difference between a vampire and a werewolf.

The Chicago Teachers Pension Fund has been rocked lately after President Jeffery Blackwell claimed the fund was a 'cabal of evil' filled with racist and misogynist trustees. The board then voted to censure three women of color trustees for alleged unprofessional and disrespectful behavior. They also reprimanded a fourth white female trustee for racism.

Blackwell and Trustee Phil Weiss, who Blackwell named to be the Investment Chair, did not attend the virtual workshop, while two of the censured trustees, Tina Padilla and Maria Rodriguez, were in attendance.  

Teacher Shortage

RUSSIAN TEACHER SHORTAGE

By Stephen Wilson

 

 

Russia still suffers from a significant shortage of school teachers, claims a recent study by the Center of Non-stop Education and Institute of Investment in Economic Research. But the lack of school teachers is more critical in the rural villages and towns which have experienced a huge trend in depopulation as local people move to the cities in search of better paid work and job opportunities. Young people are still not attracted to the profession of teaching. Even those students who train as teachers at pedagogical institutes don't bother to work in schools or stay at schools on a long term basis. Only about 10- 20% of graduates go on to teach in schools and even this is not for long. The pedagogical institutes are often the source of endless anecdotes such as 'Those institutes are the easiest places to enter' and 'are the last refuge of blockheads' or that 'the teachers pretend to teach and the students pretend to learn'.

 

The study found that low pay was hardly the only factor in dissuading young people from entering the teaching profession. Young people who have been teaching and leave complain of not being allowed to be creative, not enough time to focus attention on children because of endless paperwork and having to do reports, problems with fitting into a school collective with a distinct mindset, badly behaved children who are often spoiled or rude, and the excessive demands of parents who place unrealistic expectations on them. Tanya Klyachko, the director at the institute, states, "Now children as a rule are difficult to work with. Working with them is not easy. Therefore, many young teachers are happy to quickly quit".

 

One of the results of a shortage of teachers in some schools in the rural villages is that a teacher of history might end up teaching extra topics such as Social Knowledge and Geography. The teacher may be asked to teach a subject they are not properly qualified in and are not too familiar with the textbooks or exams. You can also have a situation where at one school an old German teacher herself is not only the head of the German department but the only teacher. Now if this old teacher happens to retire or dies then that is the end of the German Department.

 

It is worth pointing out that many middle-aged teachers who have worked for years at schools in Moscow dream of leaving their posts to become full-time tutors. The number of private tutors in Russia has shot up. Although of course there is now a lot of competition between tutors, the most professional and experienced can often make a lucrative living from such a trade. By being a tutor, an ex teacher works far less hours, obtains four or four times the amount of income they would make in a school and have the right to refuse badly behaved pupils in favor of good ones. With triple pay for less than half the time you would work in school and some free time, is it any wonder a school teacher would be tempted to take up tutoring on a full time basis? And enormous stress vanishes! Unfortunately such an expanding trend can only reinforce the transition to a two-tier education system where the more affluent who can pay for extra tuition have advantages over the poor.  Every year the number of free places at Russian universities is being cut! As much as 27.2% of the Russian state budget was invested in the army, police and Rosgvard in 2021. The amount of people employed in policing Russia comes to the staggering figure of one and a half million! Compared to China and India, in terms of the ratio of police to the number of population, Russia represents one of the most policed countries in the world. In contrast to teaching, policing seems to be one of the most attractive and alluring professions. If you wonder around the streets of Moscow you will without fail notice a police car regularly driving up the road you are on every five minutes.

 

It is interesting to hear that some angry pupils compare teachers to police officers when they try to maintain discipline in the classroom. Nevertheless, we have not found much evidence of ex-teachers taking up posts in the police force! Instead, they are more likely to be enticed by tutoring.