April Chicago Teachers Union House of Delegates meeting
The April 2nd, 2008 CTU (Chicago Teachers Union) House of Delegates meeting was held on the usual first Wednesday of the month at the usual site of Plumbers Hall, 1340 W. Washington Blvd. The good weather brought with it an almost full house (approximately 800 members can attend) with approximately 20 Union-member visitors in the balcony who had come to see the fireworks, of which there are usually a goodly amount.
Chicago Teachers Union President Marilyn Stewart announces that a citywide referendum approved the five-year contract she had negotiated with Mayor Daley's labor lawyers at a September 11, 2007, press conference. Left to right (visible) above: Treasurer Linda Porter, Financial Secretary Mark Ochoa, Marilyn Stewart, Vice President Ted Dallas, Recording Secretary Mary McGuire (partly hidden behind Dallas). Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.
Marilyn Stewart—obscenely overpaid, underperforming, and blaming teachers
This meeting revealed some disturbing trends in our Union, as well as some encouraging developments.
In the disturbing column, there was and continues to be the breath-taking shrugging off of her responsibilities by President Marilyn Stewart. Stewart has now taken more and more to blaming the Union membership for not doing the organizing that she gets over $250,000 of our dues to do, in salary alone, now that she has also made herself the secretary-treasurer of our state Union, the IFT (Illinois Federation of Teachers). She does this blame-casting repeatedly at meetings and sometimes in the Union newspaper.
This, when her top priority in negotiating the Contract should have been to use the Contract as leverage to stop the school closings and the proliferation of charter schools, to gain Union organizing access to the existing charter schools, and to force the Board to fix the lamentable glitches in the software programs they installed for payroll, pension calculations, and student records. Stewart failed to use the leverage and instead rammed through the Mayor’s dream Contract, and now she blames the Union members.
In the March, 2008 issue of the Union newspaper, the CUT (Chicago Union Teacher), in her President’s Report, Stewart says: “Unfortunately, only a handful of our members took the time to join us in that protest [at PUSH]. In fact, several of the persons who are directly impacted by the Board’s actions didn’t even bother to take part in the two events.”
Later in the report regarding other events, she said again, “It was disappointing, therefore, to see so few of our members come out to participate in those important events, that they feel are arbitrary.” And further, “It can’t be just my voice alone.”
Strategy and tactics for organizing charters?
She also has Jessica Humphries, a young and virtually inexperienced relative of an AFT official who was hired as a Union organizer of the Chicago charter schools, blaming in a very disrespectful and unprofessional way the delegates and other teachers for how little organizing is being done at the charter schools.
Charter school organizer Humphries has for months berated the delegates for not bringing in the names of charter school teachers although her premise defies understanding in the face of the organizing methods Delegates have tried to explain to her during the meetings and in many other venues.
City-wide Delegate Bill Dolnick tried to explain to her at the November, 2007 meeting that one organizing tool is to leaflet at the schools before and after school. Kelvyn Park High School Delegate Tony Gudwien, at this meeting, suggested that since the charter teachers are in our pension fund, that their names could be procured that way, if only for a mailing. Delegate Jay Rehak of Whitney Young High School said the pension board trustees who are in the Union could offer meetings at the schools and get names that way.
Humphries response was, “Well, if you have that idea.” She offered no involvement, no direction, and no resources. I guess it’s up to the members. At this April meeting, Humphries said she would have to be brutally honest. “It’s your Union,” she said, “and if you don’t show up, it won’t happen.” Read on to find out what happens when people do show up. To Jessica’s remarks, Marilyn added, “Hello, some of you share a building [with some charter schools].”
This is the same Marilyn who interrupted me when I was at the microphone speaking at the January House of Delegates meeting. I was saying that Marilyn had rushed through a disastrous contract and I was listing all its deficits, some of the chief of which was that the contract didn’t even deal with stopping school closings or giving the Union access to organizing charter teachers.
Marilyn cut off my speaking time to say that she herself had all the access she needed to charter schools. After all, many of them shared a building with public schools, she said. Such a disingenuous and specious answer. A minister whose name is now anathema in many circles might say it was a stuck-on-stupid answer. I would like to try to be less incendiary. After cutting off my time to speak, Stewart then moved on to the next speaker.
Unionizing the charter schools — Marilyn Stewart-style
What has President Stewart and charter school organizer Jessica Humphries organized for unionizing the teachers in the charter schools?
Humphries talked about a “Mixer” held in Hyde Park which was “super — a great success” with twelve charter teachers in attendance from five different schools. Okay, good, though “Mixer” makes us sound like we’re into sorority functions. However, at this April meeting, Humphries announced a phone bank activity to invite charter teachers to the Y-Me Walk for Breast Cancer to be held on Mothers Day, May 11th. The phone bank was to be held from April 7-9 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. and April 14-16 at the Union offices. Breast cancer strikes one in eight women and one per cent of the men. When after a hard day at school, Delegate Jim Vail of Hammond School took time out and came on Tuesday, April 9th (2008), to participate in the phone bank — having called the day before and left a message that he was coming — luckily Financial Secretary Mark Ochoa happened to still be in the Union offices. Ochoa led Jim Vail back into the rooms and they found nothing there for any phone bank activity. Nothing. There had been nothing organized by either President Stewart, her designees, or Organizer Humphries. Vail had to turn around and go home.
Delegate Jim Vail said of this fiasco, “Teachers are ready, but so little resources have been allotted to this effort, and there is no direction from the Union.”
I personally know of four teachers who have volunteered to work on this effort of outreach to charter teachers, and none of them has ever received a call back. When Substance editor George Schmidt volunteered, Humphries tried to talk him out of it. When he said he was going to show up, he was told by an AFT official not to come.
Yet perhaps at the next Delegates House meeting and in her next President’s Report in the Union newspaper, Marilyn will be bashing the teachers for not doing the organizing she’s refusing to do, and Jessica will have to be “brutally honest” again.
School closings, teacher firings, and other teacher bashings: Marilyn Stewart — a do-nothing on the problems of Union members Why have we not stopped the school closings? Why hasn’t the Union been able to organize the teachers at charter schools? Why in over a year have we not been able to do anything about the CPS (Chicago Public Schools) bureaucratic incompetence regarding the newly installed programs, Impact and PeopleSoft, that have disastrously affected staff payroll and pensions, as well as student records? Why won’t Marilyn sue the Board for the messed up teachers’ pay and pension calculations for new retirees that have gone on since January, 2007? To this question, Marilyn and other officers have given answers over time that are the equivalent of “Aw, they’ll (the Board) get it together.” Consultant Gail Koffman actually said that.
President Stewart’s take on these questions is that Union members are not participating in these efforts.Really! Really?
Stewart complained about teachers not coming out in sufficient numbers when she spoke at Operation Push about the school closings. I say that if she had really been organizing for these events (field reps can make calls and get commitments), the teachers would have been there. I know I would have. This, while she did not make it to most of the school closing hearings herself, not even to the hearing about Englewood High School, her alma mater. She also did not make it to most of the Board meetings or address this problem forcefully. She did not put school closings on the House agenda in February when the Board was about to take action to close schools. She did put in a purportedly more important resolution on the agenda in March about students using abusive language in schools. Is there anyone for abusive language? Did we need an innocuous resolution about this? A sad note is that when President Stewart or her representatives did come to meetings, the consensus among the listeners was that the Union officers, especially Marilyn, made a poor impression and appeared not to have educated themselves on the issues.
President Stewart — undereducated on the issues
Marilyn Stewart, for example, let Arne Duncan get a good one off at her when she did come to the January Board meeting. He said Sherman School’s scores had gone up since his “turnaround” of the school got rid of the staff there. She had not educated herself enough to know that the governor had changed how the test was scored just that year which raised the scores for all the schools and allowed Arne to say the scores had gone up at Sherman, an educational “magic-bullet” miracle he was proud to take credit for, vacuous grin and all.
Marilyn fails to use Contract negotiations as leverage against school closings and other Board disasters Rather than the accusation made by Marilyn Stewart that the Union members are not participating in the Union’s efforts, might not the problem be more that Stewart has deliberately been guilty of total inaction, except for a few feeble pretenses at doing something. In the previous years she had spoken so militantly about how we should get ready for a strike, even up to the first of the three August, 2007 House Contract meetings.
Sources close to her say that she says she has never wanted a strike, just a better Contract than Lynch got (past President Debbie Lynch). Suddenly, instead of using the Contract as leverage to stop the school closings, the payroll and student records fiascos, and the profit-as-bottom-line charter school takeover blight which has lost the Union thousands of jobs, Stewart gave Mayor Richard M. Daley the Contract he wanted—and for an astounding five years in duration, something she had criticized Lynch for trying to do and that Stewart promised not to do. She rammed this Contract down the throats of the Delegates by illegal tricks like not allowing debate on the Contract and refusing to conduct a No vote on the Contract in the House, which is the place where a totally unacceptable Contract would be voted down. This process did not even allow CTU delegates who opposed the Contract to have a vote. Then she rushed through a member vote so Delegates would not have the time to explain how this Contract was a total sell-out to the members at their schools. Delegates could also not be in touch with each other to discuss the merits and/or drawbacks of this Contract because she has taken the unprecedented step in Union history of refusing to publish a Delegates Directory which every administration has published every three years for over thirty years. Besides those factors, how frightening is it to Union members to see their Union cave like this? As I have said before, with these actions of Marilyn, the members realize that they are between the proverbial rock and a hard place, between Mayor Daley’s CPS and Mayor Daley’s CTU.
N’er a Union whisper faulting the Mayor while the city burns
A motion of no confidence in CPS CEO Arne Duncan based on a PACT (Debbie Lynch’s caucus, ProActive Chicago Teachers and School Employees) petition was passed in the House at the March meeting, but not a word from our Union chiefs placing blame directly on the Mayor’s shoulders where it belongs. Since 1995 when the legislature put the Mayor in charge of the schools, the Board has done the Mayor’s bidding. The mayor’s corporate agenda, as presented by Arne Duncan, has always been voted up, although at the March Board meeting, Board members were visibly proud to vote down for a change one of Arne’s (read the Mayor’s) proposals regarding Abbott School. The Union had saved Abbott School from closing and consolidation by pointing out to the Board that the school was not underutilized in that there was also a Head Start Program using the school building. With the Mayor in charge of the schools now for thirteen years, is there any evidence that anything at the schools—anything at all? — has improved? In some schools, some years, the scores go up, while in the same schools, other years, scores go down.
Much is made of the scores that went up in the out-of-proportion emphasis the Mayor has connived to place on this one measure. I say connived because testing has become a catch-22 for the schools: If the AYP (Average Yearly Progress) scores have improved, then they haven’t improved enough.
If they have achieved national norms, they now must exceed national norms, as one Delegate pointed out at this meeting, the rules being changed on the schools in the middle of the game.
This gives the Mayor the excuse to bust the Union at a school, give the school away to his friends as a charter, or to use a Meigs Field analogy, just exercise a bald-faced use of power by coming in and tearing it up. The amount of time devoted to test preparation in the schools these days, at the expense of real learning and other subject areas, should have made our students more test savvy and the scores should go up. So now some students may be better at the narrow goal of test-taking skills, but are they better critical thinkers, lovers of reading, literature, music, art, and lifetime learning? Do they have a sense of satisfaction about their education, or are they dropping out? Statistics sadly show the latter. The Mayor now says the drop-out statistics will be used against the schools and they will be held accountable — one more way for the Mayor to say that a school has failed.
When will the Union say the Mayor must be held accountable?
President Marilyn Stewart will never hold the Mayor accountable now that she went belly-up for him at Contract time. This is the Mayor who in his wisdom has taken the most jobless and poverty-stricken area schools in the city and has called the teachers who do the heavy lifting in those classrooms failures. He’s called the teachers, the schools, the principals, the students, the parents, and those communities’ failures. For a good number of those students, those schools and those teachers were one piece of stability they were righteously proud of. And now the Mayor has called them dirt — the teachers, the schools, the students, the community.
Teachers mourn the students killed
After the House of Delegates meeting is called to order at 4:30 p.m., Delegates come to the microphones to name the teachers and other staff members who have passed away. At this April meeting, teacher after teacher, some sobbing, were naming the students who had recently been killed. Every year the number of public school students who are killed rises.
Grinding poverty and hopelessness—and then the Mayor calls you dirt
Talk about grinding poverty and hopelessness — has the Mayor asked himself why students are killing each other in ever-increasing numbers in the city of Chicago? Is hopelessness on the rise among the public school students of “the city that works” — especially for those areas where it doesn’t work and where the jobs are few, where drug-selling has been allowed to become a cottage industry, and where students are shown that their teachers and schools can be snatched away from them on a whim of the Mayor who wants to be able to enrich his friends — corporate, political, and social — and family with charter schools, prime real estate, building giveaways, consultant-ships, and overpaid jobs in the school bureaucracy of the city that his father so effectively segregated?
This is our power-besotted Mayor who wants to bust the Union and the standard of living that teachers have managed to achieve through the Union when the Union had decent leaders who fought for their members. He wants to bust their pay, their benefits, their working conditions, and especially their pensions that he and his buddies have cast their greedy eyes upon.
Even so, AFT (American Federation of Teachers) research has shown that the pay of teachers has not kept up with comparable professions like computer operator, accountant, nurse, et al. In the Mayor’s efforts to privatize and charterize on behalf of his corporate partners, he has come up with the Mickey-D of schools, the charter schools where teachers are inexperienced, lacking in credentials, underpaid, overworked, and leave on the average after teaching between three and five years. Most often in these schools there is no oversight on curriculum. The necessities of quality education are not in place — books, computers, and labs — and much, such as programming, security, and discipline is in chaos.
The Safety and Security Committee fiddles while school violence increases
Delegates have come to the House meetings with more and more frequent complaints about the increasing violence and breakdown of discipline in the schools. At this April meeting, to the complaints of Delegate Ray Wohl and others, President Stewart tried to say that there had been meetings of the Union Safety and Health Committee to work on these problems with Coordinator Rick Perrote. Delegate Ray Wohl said there had not been a meeting since November of 2007. Perrote disputed that by saying Wohl had been at a March 25th meeting himself, and that he had been there for two hours.
Recording Secretary Mary McGuire stepped up to testify that she had seen Ray Wohl sitting at the meeting. Wohl answered that he had come for a meeting, but that while there had been an agenda prepared, it was never approved, the “meeting” was never called to order, and no meeting was conducted. Consequently, there were no minutes of this meeting because no meeting had been held. He said that the others in attendance were Coordinator Perrote, Chairperson Kirkland Robertson, Mark Ochoa, and two other staff members. He said that Ochoa announced that since there was no quorum, the task force on violence and disruptive behavior, newly initiated at the March House of Delegates meeting, would not be discussed. It seemed that the committee would not make any decisions regarding the task force.
Perrote said that the notices for this meeting had not reached their designations. Ray Wohl said angrily, “It’s outrageous that a committee so important to the horrendous problems teachers face in the schools has not met since November.”
Perrote has mostly reported on safety issues at the schools, such as broken toilets and sinks, falling tiles, and leaking roofs.
It was announced at this House meeting that Rick Perrote has developed a new uniform discipline form which teachers will soon be using.
Delegates line up to stand up to President Stewart
Under the title of Delegates sick and tired and won’t take it anymore, Delegate Chris Rudzinski of Orr Campus (AASTA High School) rose to the microphone to move “that this House censure Marilyn Stewart over the lack of Union fight against the school closures.”
It was difficult to hear and understand his speech, but it seemed that he let the motion go to committee instead of asking to have it voted on by the House. Delegate Susan Steinmiller of Gage Park High School had relinquished her speaking time to Rudzinski. My call to him at the school has not been returned, and since Stewart has refused to publish the traditional Delegates Directory, Delegates can no longer easily consult. Delegate Rudzinski’s documentation gave as reasons: 1) On December 26, 2007 Marilyn Stewart sent a letter to Mr. Duncan…revealing internal Union business and signing the letter “In solidarity” [explaining to Arne that Vice President Ted Dallas no longer was authorized to make official contact with CPS on behalf of the Union], 2) Union President did not testify against school closing [Orr High School], and 3) Union President is promoting the outside private corporation AUSL (Academy for Urban School Leadership) designed to take over closed schools by advertising [for teaching positions] in the February edition of the Union newspaper.
Delegates pass motion for more Union transparency
There were two Items for Action on the agenda. “Item A. Approve the resolution endorsing HR 676—Single Payer Universal Health Care” was passed by the House. The rationale was that HR 676 would cover every person in the United States for all necessary medical care, ending deductibles and co-payments and would save billions annually by eliminating high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs.
In answer to a Delegate’s question, it was explained that this was the universal coverage concept — neither Presidential Candidates Hillary Clinton’s nor Barack Obama’s plan.
The second item on the agenda was Item B. which was a motion to approve moving the May Executive Board meeting to April 28, 2008 from May 5, 2008, so that the budget could be presented before May 1, 2008, as it is a CTU Constitutional requirement that the Executive Board review the budget prior to May 1st.
This innocuous motion was given teeth by former Union President Deborah Lynch, now Delegate from Gage Park, when she made a motion to add the words “and allow time to ask questions about the budget at this [Executive Board] meeting and the May House meeting” after the word “presented.”
This was a very important motion to make now that there’s a Union budget deficit of millions, and since there have been years when under Marilyn Stewart the Delegates never got to ask questions about the budget as Marilyn violated the rules of parliamentary procedure, as well as had her minions close debate before questions could be asked. This occurred last year. As usual, Delegates had been told that the budget would be presented by the accountant at the May meeting and questions would only be permitted at the June meeting. Guess what? Debate closed; no questions.
Also, there were times when no answer was given even if a question managed to slip in, especially questions regarding the Union officers’ and staff’s benefits, and secret perks like expense accounts, annuities, and bonuses. In the budgets presented, Delegates have only received lump sums that do not spell out any of this.
It was good too that Debbie Lynch, President of PACT, made the motion at this juncture in the meeting, because since Marilyn put the official question period at the end of the meetings and made it virtually the only time a Delegate could make motions, it became easy for Marilyn to subvert the will of the House by skipping over microphones, cutting off speakers or ruling them out of order, or having her friends call for the meeting to adjourn.
Often the question period would be cancelled by a call for adjournment if Marilyn felt the wrong people (not her allies) were at the mikes. An additional problem was getting to the mike during the 15-minute period while Marilyn’s allies would grab places merely to run out the time, asking questions that everyone knew the answer to, like “Isn’t the Union a good thing?” The usual concerted attempt to prevent Lynch from speaking began at this meeting with UPC (Marilyn’s party, the United Progressive Caucus) stallworth Diane Blasczyzk of Onahan School saying, “I close the debate.” This was only one of a number of attempts by Blasczyk to shut down democracy. However, Lynch pointed out that Blasczyk had not made a motion so her attempt to do so should by parliamentary procedure be ignored. Lynch added that, anyway, since no one had spoken against the original motion to move the date, the rules had it that Lynch would be able to speak anyway even if Stewart allowed Blasczyk’s statement (not a motion) to be voted on.
Stewart told the Delegates to stand for a vote count on the “motion” which wasn’t a motion. This non-motion would not have been considered if it had been made by someone Stewart did not consider a political ally.
I could hear Delegates saying things like, “Do you think she’ll count the No votes? It would be something new.” Well, with some reluctance, Stewart had the No votes counted and announced that it was 126 to 126 and so the “motion” passed.
Lynch then tried to make a point of information, and after being given a lot of hassle, and after having to say what she frequently has had to say at meetings—“A point of information is always in order”—she observed that Rule #3 for House meetings was that it took a two-thirds of the House to vote to close debate. Therefore, she said, she was the next speaker. She was finally able to make her motion.
House scores a victory in the face of Union bankruptcy and Stewart’s corruption
Whereas during the first three years of the Stewart administration, Lynch would be abused at the mike (much worse than what was described above) and at the Executive Board meetings, it seems the tide has turned. People are seeing what a Union president can do to destroy a Union. Lynch spoke to her motion saying that the Union newspaper showed in black and white that the Union was on the verge of bankruptcy with a $2 million deficit while $5 million disappeared in the last three years. This is addition to a $2 million loan that has been taken out by the Union this year, though at first this was denied. Lynch said that the leadership owes the House some answers.
Delegate Ray Wohl spoke supporting Lynch’s motion saying that the pension books show all the details of teachers’ salaries and benefits, but yet the Union officers won’t give such details in the Union budget. He said this House would not accept a summary, adding that school budgets have more details than the Union budget. He said this was essential to House democracy.
Then in a total interruption of the House proceedings, Marilyn went on a very long rant saying in essence that she was not afraid of any audit and that in fact she has brought in auditors from the AFT and IFT. Marilyn ended her rant with another slap at the Delegates and their teacher and staff constituencies. She said the Union leadership can’t do everything; that there were Board meetings where we should all be out there picketing.
Marilyn shouted, “When we tell you to come out for something, you better doggone come out for it. Stop circling the wagons and shooting at each other!” After her tirade, her clapping section clapped and cheered for so long that even those who would look kindly upon a show of support for our Union president lost patience.
I was next to speak at a mike and was able to say, “They make such a big noise…for such a small group. This drew applause from the House. The points I made were that while Marilyn was not afraid, I was very afraid, and that maybe we should all be afraid. I said that President Marilyn Stewart had destroyed the reputation of our Union and of unionism both locally and nationally. I said that she had done this with her sell-out contract, with her stifling of all Union democratic principles, and with her use of the Union dues as a piggy bank for herself and her allies. Exorbitant monies for so many will cause a Union to go broke.
Stewart then took a standing vote on Delegate Deborah Lynch’s motion. I said loudly you should count the No votes. Someone else said, “Why start now?” The Parliamentarian said immediately on seeing the standing delegates that counting was unnecessary; “The motion carries.” Delegate Deborah Lynch’s motion passed overwhelmingly.
Of course, many if not most questions that the Delegates will ask the accountant at the next meeting about the budget may still be thwarted by President Stewart’s obfuscations, but at least this exercise in House democracy showed the Delegates standing united against Stewart’s shenanigans. That’s the good news to be found in this report, the encouraging development.
Delegate John Kugler of Kenwood High School told me, “The point being, as we saw at the House of Delegates meeting, Stewart is getting weaker and weaker. The House was clearly against her that night. If we take away her paid cronies that have no business on the House floor except to cheer her on, then we could get more Union business done.”
Union Vice President and Union Treasurer lead break-away group
In the rift that has broken apart the UPC (Marilyn’s party—the United Progressive Caucus), UPC Chair Vice President Ted Dallas is now also Chair of the UPC/CSDU (UPC/Coalition for a Strong Democratic Union), a new caucus in the Union. Other UPC notables who have left President Stewart’s side are Treasurer Linda Porter (whom Marilyn no longer allows to sign Union checks) and former Presidential Aide Diana Sheffer (who has been fired).
President Stewart is suing UPC President Ted Dallas and UPC Treasurer Linda Porter for the UPC treasury which is reportedly over $100, 000. So far no judge has agreed with Stewart.
In their flyer, the UPC/CSDU group states that their Coalition was formed “in order to address CTU members’ dissatisfaction with [Marilyn Stewart] the current President of the Chicago Teachers Union.” They have reached out to many disparate groups in the Union. They say the Coalition goal is “to put in place a new administration that puts its members first—an administration that will protect working conditions, an administration that gives all tenured and probationary teachers and PSRPs real job protection, and administration that will not roll over for the Chicago Public Schools Administration or the Mayor of Chicago.” The flyer addresses Stewart’s disregard for Parliamentary Procedures and Roberts Rules of Order, including reporting incorrect vote tallies, summarily dismissing motions, calling for a quorum to end discussion of the opposition, and violating Article IX, Section 1, of the CTU Constitution and By-laws which states: “Under the Union membership itself, the decisions of the House of Delegates on Union matters shall be supreme and final. The House may consider and act upon any matter which it regards as pertinent to the purposes and activities of this Union.”
Stewart is also criticized for her “shameful failure…to address the arbitrary termination of hundreds of CTU members subsequent to closing and reclassifying schools. Equally shameful is the President’s failure to address the proliferation of non-Union charter schools and contract schools [thousands of jobs lost].”
The flyer charges Stewart with taking sole responsibility for the Contract and excluding the Union attorney and officers; with deciding that the final negotiations did not need a written record which is why it has taken so long for the Contract books to be in members’ hands; with receiving guidance from a former CTU officer with close ties to the attorneys negotiating the contract for the Mayor, which suggests that the Contract was a done deal before negotiations even started; and with presenting an erroneous report that in August of 2007 the vote tally supported the passage of the new Union Contract in the House of Delegates.
The question periods find more criticism of Stewart
Besides the motion to censure President Marilyn Stewart occurring during the official question period at the end of the meeting, there was also a motion by former Union Research Director and now Retiree Delegate Lou Pyster who moved that the budget would at long last reflect the benefits of the officers, the sick leave, severance pay, bonuses, and expense accounts (phone, car, and miscellaneous). Rather than have the motion voted on as Pyster wanted, the President herself then said there was no quorum in the House and sent the motion that she dreads “to committee.”
At the pre-meeting question period, Pyster had asked what the Union had done specifically to stop the Board from rearranging the lives of Union members. He listed a number of schools affected in the past two months. He asked about what had been done in the grievance department, what law suits had been filed, ULPs (Unfair Labor Practices). He wanted an annual report. “In other words,” Delegate Pyster said, “how have you been able to protect our members?”
Marilyn answered that there had been a flyer “in last month’s packet.” “You obviously didn’t read it,” she sniped at him.
Pyster was momentarily confused and realized later that she had given him one of her famously evasive answers while she fully knew that he meant since that time listed on the flyer.
Random information from the meeting
A PAT (Probationary Assigned Teacher) will only get tenure after three years starting with the 2008-9 school year. This school year if a PAT is let go, but if he/she gets a job in 10 months, there is no break in service.
To be “clicked off” or dismissed, PATs must have had two observations, one by the principal, and they must have received a “summative report” by the last week of March.
To a question from City-wide Delegate Pat Garner, President Stewart said that the Union had asked for the number of dismissed PATs. She said first the Board would vote April 23rd, and then would release the names. Grievances might delete some names, she said.
If the Board overpays someone, and it’s a one-time overpayment, the Board might take it back all at once, according to Consultant Gail Koffman. However, if it’s been over a period of time, there should be a payment plan, she said.
Kelvyn Park High School Delegate Allegra Podrovsky commented that the Union needed to take it up a notch or two on all of the payroll and pension errors which continue to be made. She said, “What you’re doing is not working. Be vicious. Maybe everyone should not come to work one day. The Board should be punished for the snake-oil salesmen it hires and the bad software programs it buys.” Delegates applauded.
Sniping at the Delegates again, Stewart said, “I want those applauding to show up that day.” (She really meant Not show up.) She went on with the tired response to this complaint, saying that Bob Runcie who is in charge of the Impact Program should be e-mailed daily regarding payroll errors at: Impact@cps.k12.il.us or his name. Stewart said that if the software system prevents teachers from putting in grades, then Bob Runcie should be forced to come out to the school.
To another Delegate who said the incomplete checks were really impacting her finances, Koffman listed the actions that had been taken by the Union about the payroll errors — meetings, grievances, ULPs…She said, “If you know, tell us what else we can do.” Several Delegates including me called out, “Sue them!” This was ignored. Some feel that the Union is too deeply in the Mayor’s pocket to consider a lawsuit. In the Contract, Stewart did not even get interest on the corrected pay the Board owed members.
There were two speeches about how the Contract books are still not even in the Delegates' hands, one by Joseph McDermott of Crane High School. He was told by Stewart that the books would be distributed in the middle of April and that the Contract has been on the website of late.
President Stewart reiterated that the Board has agreed that if the entire student body is sent to a different school building, then the teachers will go with the students according to a newly minted Board policy.
The Residency Bill allowing teachers to live outside of the city passed in the House and is now waiting to go to the Senate.
The bill to force school nurses to give students insulin shots will not be called for a vote.
Coordinator Molly Carroll announced that Arne Duncan was reprimanded by the Board for not following the Board rule and Contract Article 45-20 regarding how Performance Schools are organized. Duncan said he had made the same decision the Union would have made even though the committee never met. “He knew what we wanted, he said, and he did it,” Carroll joked. The committee deals with recruitment, teacher and staff transfer rights, professional development, and mentoring. The Union is waiting for an answer to its appeal.
Regarding identity theft, Stewart said the Board gave us only one year of protection from their egregious error. The Union had asked for seven years. The grievance has gone to arbitration, but in the meantime we should protect ourselves since the Board isn’t doing it, she said. Stewart suggested having your credit put on a 90-day watch.
June Davis, Paraprofessional (PSRP) Field Representative Coordinator, said that the PSRPs (Paraprofessional School-Related Personnel) will no longer be on extended pay starting in September, but extended pay will be started “for people who cannot save their money.” Does she not understand that some salaries are too low for the obligations some families have, and that they preclude savings? The other PSRP field reps are Anita Burks and Anthony Lopez.
Belated congratulation to Retiree Delegate Barbara J. Baker for the award given to her by the Union Women’s Rights Committee.
Marilyn toys with the Delegates I was coincidentally the first speaker at the official question period. I hadn’t intended to speak a second time at the meeting, but then President Stewart started doing something so strange that I heard one Delegate comment, “She must be on something.”
Long lines had formed at the mikes as Delegates rushed to speak during this question period. Class-size Coordinator Erin Doubleday had just finished her report: 42 schools with complaints, 30 resolved, 12 pending. She said she would check if 210 positions were being used improperly. So Marilyn says to the Delegates lined up at Mike One, “Clear the mikes. Clear the mikes. You’re lining up too early.” The Delegates go to their seats as decorum requires. After all, there have been times at other meetings where Delegates in their eagerness to get to speak have jumped the gun and gotten to the mike too early while there was other business that had to be taken care of before the question period could start.
Then Marilyn really starts clowning and playing with the tired Delegates, most of whom had probably started their day around 6:30 a.m. or earlier, and now at 6:30 p.m., they are objects of derision to her. She says, “On your mark…oh, oh, go back. All right, go forth. Oh, oh, go back…go forth.”
Marilyn laughed when the seven or eight lined-up Delegates left Mike One. The Delegates were confused. One or two started to say, “Well, you’re not telling the long lines of Delegates at Mikes Two, Three, and Four to sit down.”
Someone kept shouting, “No, no, no, no!” Another Delegate shouted, “We all worked today.”
When Marilyn again told them to come to the mike, not one of the Delegates returned. I was sitting right there, so with no one coming to the mike, I did a little sideways dance right up to the mike. I felt she had asked for it. I felt she had it coming— more of my criticism, that is.
I talked about the internal conflict with Vice President Dallas that she’s made public by a letter to Arne Duncan with a salutary closing of “In solidarity.” I said that it made us look bad, Marilyn playing at office politics while Arne destroys the schools. “Talk about circling the wagons and shooting each other, what do you think you are doing with your fellow officers?” I started to talk about how she was into a state of internal dissension with some of her officers and seemingly closer to Arne Duncan. The officers should be working together in the Union members’ interests, I said.
President Stewart’s answer did not address my concerns but only reiterated the duties of the Vice President and her powers. When she said that she would not discuss personnel issues, one Delegate called out, “He doesn’t work for you. He was elected.”
Just muzzle the Delegates when you don’t like what they say It was either during this speech or my first one about the destruction of the Union by President Marilyn Stewart that she interrupted me, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I started yelling that I had always been polite to her even though she typically cut me off, as well as others, when she didn’t like what a Delegate said. I said I demanded my full three minutes. Others like Retiree Delegate John Lewis and Delegate Ray Wohl vocally supported me.
She pretended she had only been trying to get the hall quiet so I could talk, but our president had her sergeants-at-arms muzzle my mike as I continued to call for democracy in the Union hall.
Later Stewart called on her ally Delegate Alex Illich of Kennedy High School who was promoted to a position in the Union. He said that the enemy was not on the stage but lives on Clark Street (where the Board has its headquarters). All I can say to Illich’s remark is You could have fooled me. As much as the Union has always meant to me in my working years, and means to me now as protector of teachers and schools, and of my pension, this is the first time—possibly with the exception of the period when the late Tom Reece was president—that I wish it were true that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Or should I say that President Marilyn Stewart seems to be allied with those who are my enemies and the enemies of the schools?
News commentator and satirist Keith Olbermann on MSNBC has a worse-worser-worst-persons feature on his show. He ends up naming the day’s “Worst Person in the World.” Hmmm, I wonder who it is that I would pick. Hmmm.
