Chicago teachers continue fight for school safety

This article was written on Tuesday, February 2. The situation is moving quickly. For the latest updates and solidarity activities, the union website is https://www.ctulocal1.org/

Negotiations between the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) continue to dominate the news in this city. The purpose of this article is to explain where things stand today.

Background

The CPS had proposed a phased reopening of the schools, after in-person learning had been halted by the Covid pandemic. The original plan called for Kindergarten and Special Education students to return to the classroom on January 11. By February 1, all 1^st through 8^th grade students were supposed to have returned to school. In both cases teachers were meant to have returned one week earlier. There have been no plans for the reopening of the High Schools.

The union rightly saw this plan as posing a serious danger to its members and their students. The CTU and CPS have been engaged in contentious and highly publicized negotiations. Unlike most labor negotiations, the current status of every item on the table is in the papers and on TV. The negotiations have not been without drama. Mayor Lori Lightfoot bitterly denounced the union at a late night press conference which was supposed to highlight progress at the bargaining table! The CPS had threatened to dock the pay, and lock out of the Google Suite online teaching platform, teachers who did not enter the buildings. Headlines have screamed of imminent strike possibilities. Today, an anti-union group is picketing the home of union president Jesse Sharkey.

The union has not been intimidated by this situation. Zoom rallies and car caravans have been organized. Teachers have continued to have highly visible “work-ins” where they set up their laptops on card tables outside their schools and teach on the street, despite the bitter winter conditions. The CTU’s highly effective public relations department has been burning the midnight oil.

There’s reason to believe that some of management’s hard line dramas are really feints designed to make progress at the bargaining table. The CPS has been backing down on their threats. Management has repeatedly pushed back opening day. School now won’t begin until February 4^th. Non-reporting teachers aren’t going to be locked out of Google Suite this week. On Monday, CPS CEO Janice Jackson called for a 48 hour “cooling-off period” in the negotiations. All of this suggests a certain softening of management’s position.

State of negotiations

The union has made clear from the beginning that it is ready to return to in person learning the moment that it is safe to do so. The union has argued that the poor condition of the school buildings, the very uneven protective measures taken by the CPS, and the difficulties of social distancing with younger children all make the spread of the virus a serious concern. A number of issues have dominated the negotiations. The following ones have been resolved:

health and safety protocols
ventilation
contract tracing
formation of school safety committees

Some of the main issues still on the table are:

testing programs for teachers and students
agreeing on a reopening metric. This means agreeing on statistics that need to be reached for reopening to proceed safely.
accommodations for teachers in special situations. This means providing for remote teaching for teachers who either have heightened risk factors for Covid or who live in the same home as someone who does.
no teacher should be forced to return until they have had their first vaccination. This is probably going to be the hardest issue to resolveat the bargaining table.

Vaccinations

The union proposal that teachers receive the vaccination before they return to the classroom obviously makes good medical sense. The problem is the way in which management has been able to present this demand to the rest of the working class. Countless editorials and commentators have said, “Teachers are saying they’re more important than other workers. They want to have the vaccine first before you do, before other essential workers.” This charge may well have found a certain echo with which the union will have to deal.

The best way for the union to do this is an appeal to the rest of the Chicago working class: “No essential worker should have to work without the vaccine. We teachers are in Illinois Category1-B, along with all other essential workers. When all of us in Category 1-B have been vaccinated, then we can all return to work.”

There’s a broader issue here: the disgraceful chaos of the vaccine roll out. Workers shouldn’t have to bicker with one another over who gets the vaccine first. Everybody deserves it right now, today. The fact that there are not enough doses available is entirely the fault of the profit system. The causes for the roll out fiasco are that the big pharmaceutical companies are driven by profit, the health care system has been gutted by inadequate funding and privatization for years, there is no central system based on social and medical needs, and that scientific research is for securing patents and wealth not shared social benefit.

It’s the fault of the bosses that the vaccination program has been bungled. We shouldn’t let those same bosses turn one worker against another, arguing who should get the vaccine first.

Solidarity with the CTU!

Union members have a number of issues to sift through as they work out their next move. SEIU Local 73,who represent 9,000 other educational workers at the CPS have just settled with the Board. The CTU took a membership vote on whether to continue working from home. The results were tallied on January 24. There was an 86% voter turnout with 71% voting in favor. This means that only 61% of the membership endorsed this course of action.

Management will attempt to make hay of the currently declining citywide Covid figures. (Today’s positivity rate is 5.6%). They will also point to in-person learning taking place at parochial and private schools.

This is not the first time that the CTU has faced a challenging situation. Their leadership and membership have always risen to the occasion before and there’s every reason to believe they will this time too. The Chicago Teachers Union has never hesitated to support other workers’ struggles and social movements. Now it’s our turn to support the CTU.