Class Size Lies...
CTU members facing class sizes of 35 and layoffs of up to 3,000 colleagues have Marilyn Stewart to blame, though she’s trying to blame the state for this one. Her recent all-member letter, four days before the run-off election, has a whopper of a lie in it, one members should know. Stewart’s June 3, 2010, letter states that "under state law there are some things they (CPS) can do because those items are permissive subjects of bargaining, such as class size." This is an outright lie meant to take the blame away from herself and her contract. Don’t believe it.
On August 8, 2007, with negotiations on the 2007 - ?? contract at a crucial point, Chicago Teachers Union President Marilyn Stewart (above at microphone) called a meeting of the CTU House of Delegates and told the delegates to prepare for a possible strike because of the Board of Education's intransigence. By that time, Stewart had abandoned the coalition of CPS unions that had been forged by earlier administrations and strengthened under her predecessor, Deborah Lynch). What CTU members and delegates did not know on August 8, 2007, was that Stewart had already cut most of the union's elected officers out of the negotiations, leaving only Vice President Ted Dallas (who refused to leave the table and was later purged by Stewart) at the bargaining table. By August 31, 2007, Stewart had agreed with Mayor Daley's lawyers to a deal that included abandoning language to enforce the class size provisions of the contract. At a heated August 31, 2007 House of Delegates meeting, Stewart ended the meeting abruptly before the House had finished reviewing the lengthy proposed contract, then refused to take the "No" votes before rushing downstairs for a press conference to announce, inaccurately, that the House had voted in favor of the proposed contract (when she had in fact refused to count the "No" votes, which many believe were the majority). Above, the August 8, 2007 Marilyn Stewart press conference. Left to right: Vice President (at the time) Ted Dallas; Marilyn Stewart; Treasurer Linda Porter; Financial Secretary Mark Ochoa; and Field Rep June Davis (who wasn't an elected officer, but who was usually called upon to stand during press events). Substance photo by George N. Schmidt. Permissive simply means that the Board and the Union can negotiate over class size — and they did. Stewart's own contract gives CPS the right to make changes to class sizes in Article 28-1, page 66 of the 2007-2012 CTU Contract.
She can not, and should not, blame the state law or anything else on this one. Article 28-1. VI. Administrative Discretion in Exceptional Circumstances. The Chief Executive Officer or Chief Financial Officer is authorized to permit deviations from this policy where circumstances in the judgment of either of them require it.
Article 28-1. VII. Procedures for Modifying Class Size Policy
Prior to the Board’s adoption of any amendments to this policy altering class size provisions contained herein, notice and an opportunity to meet and confer regarding alterations will be provided to the Chicago Teachers Union at least 45 days prior to implementation.
It’s important to note that Stewart’s caucus, the United Progressive Caucus (UPC), lost many of our most vital bargaining rights in the 1995 law (the "Amendatory Act") that brought us mayoral control of the school system, when UPC CTU president Thomas Reece was in office.
The Illinois legislature prohibited only one K-12 teachers’ union in the state, the Chicago Teachers Union, from bargaining over such time-honored union issues as class size, staffing, layoffs, the calendar and much, much more. The UPC leadership then never really admitted the severity of the hit on our union, making those subjects “prohibited subjects of bargaining”. The reality was that between 1995 and 2002, class size was non-negotiable and completely and utterly unenforceable.
This attack on our bargaining rights — along with eight years of 2 percent raises in the boom times of the late 1990’s — gave rise to the PACT win of CTU offices in 2001. A major campaign promise and first order of business was to change the 1995 law and restore those lost bargaining rights. The Lynch team went so far as to say there would be no negotiations on a new contract unless and until the law was changed. We negotiated with City Hall, Springfield and, with the support of labor unions affiliated with the Chicago Federation of Labor and school reform groups we convinced to support us, we won the necessary change from prohibited subjects of bargaining to permissive subjects of bargaining.
In fact, in my first of only two meetings with Mayor Daley, shortly after taking office, I told him straight out that “reform” in Chicago would never happen if teachers had no voice, that our voice was honored at the bargaining table, and if he wanted our participation in improving our schools he needed to support the restoration of our bargaining rights.
So in 2003, and again in 2007, the Board did negotiate over these previously prohibited subjects of bargaining. In our contract — the one Stewart has been castigating for six years now (then made minor changes to and called it the best contract in CTU history) — class size again was negotiable and enforceable. We agreed to the class size referral process as a speedier, less confrontational way to get class size problems resolved, which turned out to be true. We created the class size supervisory panel which was to meet monthly at strategic bargaining, ostensibly to ensure speedy implementation of class size recommendations. And we won the extra $2 million for staffing overcrowded K-3 classrooms. Our contract did include language on exceptional circumstances.
So Marilyn Stewart agreed to a contract with the above language which is now coming back to haunt her — and our union’s members. CPS is taking advantage of this contract language because Stewart agreed to it, not because of any state law.
She should be taking (and getting) the full blame now for the current crisis and any accompanying layoffs. And CTU members should be holding her accountable this Friday.
[Editor's Note: Deborah Lynch served as President of the Chicago Teachers Union from 2001 to 2004. She ran for president in the May 21, 2010 CTU election and after taking third place, brought her PACT caucus to support CORE and Karen Lewis in the runoff election on Friday, June 11. Deborah Lynch currently teaches at Chicago's Gage Park High School, where she serves as CTU delegate.]
Comments:
By: Jay Rehak
Lynch is correct
Thanks, Debbie, for clarifying the issue. Your article makes our current situation easy to understand. It's unfortunate, but Marilyn fumbled the class size issue. Her 11th hour lawsuit won't help anyone except perhaps the Mr. Huberman, who might use "fire code" violations as a pre-text to lay off more teachers. Hopefully, CORE will win the election on June 11th, and we can begin to reclaim the power of 30,000 members.
By: Andrew Martinek
Leadership with integrity
Thank you Debbie for once again getting to the TRUTH of the matter. We have always been able to rely on your integrity. I phoned into the conference call with Marilyn Stewart tonight. The call started at 6 p.m. and ended suspiciously at 6:43 p.m. It was heavily managed and screened by Marilyn's handlers. There were a number of softball questions from people I could recognize as UPC delegates. And a number of poll questions asking members to choose between raises and jobs or class size and jobs. I kept waiting for the Hell NO! None of the above option. However, they did finally, at the very end, ask me about my question. I explained that I wanted to ask about union finances and the financial health of the union were we to take action in the next contract negotiation. I was never able to ask my question as the conference call abruptly ended after my screening. I found the oh so Grim and not so Fairy Tale in Substance to be much more informative.