House of Delegates June Meeting Ends with a Bang!
By Jim Vail
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) House of Delegates (HOD) met for the last time of the 2018-2019 school year and before the teachers contract ends June 30.
Sparks flew at the June 5 meeting between the trustees and leadership over an amendment to the budget that the delegates had to vote on before passing the budget.
The amendment was to shine a light on political spending and make lobbying and some other political functions (about $300,000) come under the Political Action Committee (PAC) budget, rather than be absorbed in the regular CTU budget.
The amendment was sponsored by six of the seven trustees who are in CORE and wanted to make the CTU political spending more transparent.
Some say the union has spent almost a million dollars just to elect political dept. employee Brandon Johnson to the Cook County Board. But nobody knows the exact figures because the CTU made a $1 million loan to the PAC to fight former Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his harsh privatization agenda and mixes monies from the CTU Foundation that is only accountable to the four officers - President Jesse Sharkey, VP Stacy Davis Gates, Financial Secretary Maria Moreno and Recording Secretary Christel Williams-Hayes.
VP Gates came down to the mic to speak against the amendment by saying this plays right into the former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner agenda to take away the union's political spending rights and led to his Janus Supreme Court decision that forces unions to collect dues rather than automatically collect them.
Teacher activist Sarah Chambers - who was fired from Saucedo Elementary School when she led students to opt out of the PARCC standardized exam and is now a charter school teacher - said that politics are very important for the union and this amendment would only limit the union.
"This amendment will tie our hands," Chambers told the delegates. "Everything is political. This is the same thing Rauner and our bosses want."
The trustees countered that the CTU budget is too opaque.
"With this budget I'm not happy," said Alison Eichhorn, a Lindblom delegate and CTU trustee. "We have overspent the $9 million in reserves. I tried to find out where it went and I couldn't. The PAC still owes $1 million to the CTU."
The amendment to the budget failed, with 88 voting for the amendment (I voted in favor), and 216 voting against the amendment. The delegates then passed the budget.
Schurz delegate Victor Ochoa, who ran as vice president on the Members First slate that lost to CORE in the recent May union election, gave a somber assessment to the delegates after the amendment vote failed.
"This was a check on expenditures," Ochoa said. "This is a discussion we can't afford not to have. This is why our dues will be going up and our field reps continue to disappear and we won't be getting people to sign up for the CTU."
The CTU says it still owes $2.6 million to the Merchandise Mart, where it cannot sublease a rent it still must pay for another two years. The budget passed included the possibility of the CTU taking out a line of credit at 6.5% rate for $1.5 million to handle the cash flow.
By Jim Vail
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| Newly elected CTU officers Christel Williams, Stacy Gates and Pres. Jesse Sharkey. |
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) House of Delegates (HOD) met for the last time of the 2018-2019 school year and before the teachers contract ends June 30.
Sparks flew at the June 5 meeting between the trustees and leadership over an amendment to the budget that the delegates had to vote on before passing the budget.
The amendment was to shine a light on political spending and make lobbying and some other political functions (about $300,000) come under the Political Action Committee (PAC) budget, rather than be absorbed in the regular CTU budget.
The amendment was sponsored by six of the seven trustees who are in CORE and wanted to make the CTU political spending more transparent.
Some say the union has spent almost a million dollars just to elect political dept. employee Brandon Johnson to the Cook County Board. But nobody knows the exact figures because the CTU made a $1 million loan to the PAC to fight former Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his harsh privatization agenda and mixes monies from the CTU Foundation that is only accountable to the four officers - President Jesse Sharkey, VP Stacy Davis Gates, Financial Secretary Maria Moreno and Recording Secretary Christel Williams-Hayes.
VP Gates came down to the mic to speak against the amendment by saying this plays right into the former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner agenda to take away the union's political spending rights and led to his Janus Supreme Court decision that forces unions to collect dues rather than automatically collect them.
Teacher activist Sarah Chambers - who was fired from Saucedo Elementary School when she led students to opt out of the PARCC standardized exam and is now a charter school teacher - said that politics are very important for the union and this amendment would only limit the union.
"This amendment will tie our hands," Chambers told the delegates. "Everything is political. This is the same thing Rauner and our bosses want."
"With this budget I'm not happy," said Alison Eichhorn, a Lindblom delegate and CTU trustee. "We have overspent the $9 million in reserves. I tried to find out where it went and I couldn't. The PAC still owes $1 million to the CTU."
The amendment to the budget failed, with 88 voting for the amendment (I voted in favor), and 216 voting against the amendment. The delegates then passed the budget.
Schurz delegate Victor Ochoa, who ran as vice president on the Members First slate that lost to CORE in the recent May union election, gave a somber assessment to the delegates after the amendment vote failed.
"This was a check on expenditures," Ochoa said. "This is a discussion we can't afford not to have. This is why our dues will be going up and our field reps continue to disappear and we won't be getting people to sign up for the CTU."
The CTU says it still owes $2.6 million to the Merchandise Mart, where it cannot sublease a rent it still must pay for another two years. The budget passed included the possibility of the CTU taking out a line of credit at 6.5% rate for $1.5 million to handle the cash flow.
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