HOD Oct.

Delegates Endorse Biden & Harris at HOD

By Jim Vail 

The CTU endorsed Joe Biden & Kamala Harris
for President and Vice President.

The Chicago Teachers Union delegates voted 89 percent - 11 percent in favor of endorsing Joe Biden (D) for President against Donald Trump at the October 7 House of Delegates meeting.

The first delegate speaker questioned why the CTU would want to endorse someone who championed the 1994 Crime Bill which gave rise to the racist attacks by law enforcement on black people and who is against Medicare for All. Another delegate said candidates should earn an endorsement, and Biden who teamed up with President Barack Obama and Arne Duncan to viciously attack public education and teachers unions and promote charter schools under the Race to the Top program did not earn that right.

But other delegates said the CTU endorsement was important to help defeat the openly racist and some would say borderline fascist leader in the White House who refuses to denounce white supremacy. 

"This endorsement is very important to stop a fascist takeover," said Beatrice Lumpkin, a 102-year-old retired teacher delegate whose photo of her voting in complete anti-Covid gear was the talk of social media tweets and retweets. 

Lumpkin always implores her fellow delegates to vote for the democrats, marking a time when unions and democrats were once a solid team. Fewer than 10 percent of American workers are members of a union today, resulting in a catastrophic income gap.

CTU VP Stacy Davis Gates, who always jumps into a conversion she feels needs her direction, said that the teaching force in Chicago has become more white, so the ticket with VP candidate Kamala Harris, a black female, is important.

"This is about survival," she said. "Trump has to go."

In her opening speech to the delegates, Gates said it is up to white women in the unions to vote out a president who is making a "mockery of our country."

President Jesse Sharkey stated once again that if teachers can stay out of the building, to stay out. 

"I understand it can be convenient, but if you can stay out, stay out because we are in a fight with the board to stay out," he said on video camera.

Union officials cannot say whether or not the Chicago Public Schools will reopen schools in November, but they are dead set against it. Sharkey noted that 100 schools in New York City had to shut down after students and teachers were hit with the Covid-19 Virus.

Sharkey said it is worrying that CPS refuses to bargain with the union.

"Members shall work under safe conditions," he said. "What does that tell us about CPS to keep our workers at home and CPS won't bargain with us. They are undermining our ability to stay out of the buildings until it is safe."

The CTU is against going back to the classroom because the virus is still present and is predicted to get worse as winter approaches. The union won a grievance that stated the clinicians like clerks and speech pathologists should not go back to the schools, but CPS does not want to follow the ruling.

The union said the teachers should have more remote learning PD and planning and less online screen time for the students.

Sharkey said there are lot of privacy issues with google and online learning and he believes CPS is in agreement. He said teachers do not have to record their sessions, and who's to say google is not recording instructors in order to train AI to do what we do. He said teachers should know when an administrator is observing their online instruction, and to report to the union if they are being watched or observed without their knowledge.

Chris Baehrend with the charter division said Acero (formerly UNO Charter) layed off 26 of their 52 special education teachers, not because of funding, but because they had no work. 

CTU political coordinator Kurt Hilgendorf, who made his presentation alongside his toddler, stated once again it is important that all CTU members vote Yes to change the Illinois Constitution so that a Fair Tax, or graduated income tax, is implemented. Multi-billionaires like Ken Griffin, the richest man in Illinois, has spent more than $20 million attack ads to vote against the measure that would tax him and others who make more than a million dollars a year. Griffen had asked former Mayor Rahm Emanuel to close 150 Chicago public schools. The former mayor then closed 50 schools in 2013, the largest school closings in the history of the country.