CHICAGO — The Chicago Teachers Union will push for teacher raises, plus more funding for special education, mental health services and sports programs as teachers negotiate the union’s first contract with Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Speaking broadly about the proposal Tuesday at City Club of Chicago, CTU president Stacy Davis Gates told reporters the union’s contract demands are “about transformation and will cost money.” She declined to give specifics but said she expects negotiations to be “less of a soap opera” with Johnson — a former CPS teacher and union organizer — in office.
The teachers’ contract expires in June.
The CTU has not made its proposals public, but the union’s leaked internal memos were published this week by Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative policy group that routinely posts anti-CTU and anti-union positions.
According to the leaked memos, demands include cost-of-living raises that meet or exceed inflation and 12 weeks of paid leave, along with “safety committees” and restorative justice coordinators in every school and housing assistance for CTU members.
That is only a “draft” of the proposal, and the union is still in the process of ratifying its demands, Gates said Tuesday. The union’s House of Delegates will meet Wednesday to review and vote on the proposal, Gates said.
“Anything that endeavors to transform schools that don’t have a sports program in the fall, winter or spring, it will cost money. We endeavored to put orchestra, band, choir and drama in all of our schools. … Those are things that do not exist consistently in every school community, so that will have a price tag,” Gates said.
The CTU won a nurse and social worker for every school in its 2019 deal, the most costly contract in CPS history at $1.5 billion. The union is looking to build off those wins in this next round of bargaining, Gates said.
“Now, can we get the ratios down? Can we have more than one social worker? Can we make sure that there’s a librarian?” Gates said.
CTU contract negotiations in 2019 with former Mayor Lori Lightfoot were tense and spurred the longest teachers strike in three decades. The two sides clashed again in 2021 and 2022 about returning to classrooms during the pandemic. The 2022 standoff forced classes to be canceled for several days.
This year’s negotiations may play out differently with Johnson, though the mayor has largely avoided questions since taking office on how he will handle contract negotiations. The CTU pumped $2.5 million into Johnson’s campaign for mayor, records show.
In her speech at City Club and in response to questions from reporters, Gates praised Johnson’s leadership, signaling a more collaborative negotiation process moving forward.
“This won’t be the soap opera it has been, where you have the villain and then you have the hero,” the CTU president said. “How about, ‘We’re all going to deal with the complicated set of issues with contradictions all over the place and we’re going to commit to figuring it out?'”
Johnson recently announced a $1.5 billion affordable housing plan that would essentially do away with the city’s controversial tax-increment financing districts.
TIF districts have been dubbed the city’s “shadow budget,” collecting taxes from designated areas around the city that go into a special fund controlled by the mayor. Chicago has 121 designated TIF districts, and 45 are set to expire by the end of 2027.
The money returned to the city from the expiring districts would not only completely cover the debt accrued, but would allow the city to use its money more freely to invest in communities across the city, according to the mayor’s plan.
The shift away from TIF districts could benefit Chicago public schools, Gates said.
“I haven’t been this excited to do my job in a very long time,” she said.
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