The Chicago Teachers Union has voted to ratify its tentative contract agreement with Chicago Public Schools, averting the prospect that the city’s longest teachers strike in decades could resume.
With about a fifth of ballots still to be counted late Friday, the union said the measure was passing by an overwhelming margin, with about 80% so far voting yes.
President Jesse Sharkey said in a statement that members “understand that we won the best contract that we were able to get given the balance of forces that we have.”
“This contract is a powerful advance for our city and our movement for real equity and educational justice for our school communities and the children we serve,” Sharkey said.
If the union had rejected the contract, it would have opened up the possibility that the strike, which lasted 11 school days, could resume. But before the ratification vote was announced, Sharkey sought to put that concern to rest, while noting the CTU didn’t get all it wanted.
“Do I feel like we got everything we deserved in schools? No. And I hope our members aren’t satisfied, either. We live in one of the richest cities in the wealthiest nation in the world, and it’s time Chicago officials start investing in the future of our city — our children,” he said.
The new agreement must now be approved by the Chicago Board of Education, which meets Wednesday to take up the matter.
After the strike — marked by boisterous union rallies and a tense war of words between union leaders on one side, and Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools officials on the other — the walkout was suspended after a final showdown Oct. 31 over how many of the missed school days would be made up.
That agreement resulted in an estimated 300,000 schoolchildren and 25,000 union members returning to the classroom the following day. But the union still had to ratify the contract, by a simple-majority vote of rank-and-file members, before the strike was formally called off. The vote took place Thursday and Friday at CPS schools and union headquarters.
Lightfoot and CPS CEO Janice Jackson also released a statement late Friday saying they were pleased with the vote results and that the contract “achieves key objectives for both CPS and CTU.”
“This historic, fiscally-responsible agreement includes investments and initiatives that will build on the incredible progress our schools have made and support our commitment to equity,” the statement said. “We are proud of the significant benefits the agreement will provide to our staff, students and families, and we look forward to all that our school community will accomplish together over the next five years.”
Both sides have called the tentative agreement historic.
It includes $1.5 billion in combined additional spending over the course of the five-year agreement, compared with the contract that expired in June. The total annual cost of that contract was $2.6 billion in its final year, according to CPS. Under the agreement, if it’s approved by the school board, the new spending would ramp up annually, from $115 million this year to about $500 million in additional spending expected in the final year, according to CPS figures.
For the current year, that’s $33 million more than what CPS had planned for when the Board of Education approved the budget in August, while negotiations with the union were underway. That figure includes $15 million more for pay and benefits, with 3% cost-of-living raises that are half a percentage point higher than the raises initially budgeted for. CTU’s deal will also add $11 million for a restructured pay scale for support staff such as nurses and teaching assistants; $5 million for measures to get substitute teachers in hard-to-staff schools, improve pipelines for nurses, social workers and case managers, and support students in temporary living situations; and another $2 million for reducing class sizes.
Some of the changes set out in the contract will kick in right away, while others will be phased in. By the end of the five years, teachers will see 16% raises in addition to regular pay increases for experience and education, and every school will have its own social worker and nurse. Classes over certain size limits could get funding to split into two classes with another teacher or to add a teacher assistant.
At union headquarters Friday evening, volunteers wheeled ballot materials into elevators and up to the open space where others counted votes methodically, sorting by network and school. Ballots that needed extra attention were placed in boxes marked “supplemental pending questionable” and “supplemental to be checked.”
Debby Pope, a retired Gage Park High School teacher now works part-time for the union, volunteered to help count votes.
“I was very invested in the strike,” Pope said. “… I feel this contract is a referendum for everything the union has been fighting for, for our students.”
Pope’s daughter went to Whitney Young Magnet High School while she was teaching at Gage Park, and the disparity in resources at the two schools motivated her to become more involved. She said the tentative agreement represents important resources her students deserved but didn’t get.
In the newly released November issue of “Chicago Union Teacher,” a CTU publication, teachers and union staff tackle issues within the tentative agreement and highlight its gains. Articles warn against sliding back into the “rut of routine” and encourage members to keep fighting for more.
“Scarce resources force educators to be pitted against one another, deeming one position as more important than another,” wrote Leslie Westerberg, a CTU delegate and librarian at Nixon Elementary School, in an article titled “Our work is not done: the need for more librarians in Chicago Public Schools.”
Cook County Commissioner and CTU organizer Brandon Johnson wrote a piece titled “Organizing to build a more perfect union.”
And Dennis Kosuth, a certified school nurse who works in CPS and was on the CTU bargaining team, wrote about the state of nursing in the district and how the contract addresses concerns. Nurses plan to keep meeting and organizing in order to collaborate and make sure the contract is enforced, he wrote.
“A nurse in every school every day was a simple demand that our unions and the school communities could get behind, but it took real collective effort and an 11-day strike to make progress towards that reality,” Kosuth wrote. “We should all take pride in that work, because our students will be the beneficiaries of it.”
hleone@chicagotribune.com
