November 14, 2007 Chicago Teachers Union House of Delegates meeting
The CTU (Chicago Teachers Union) House of Delegates met at Plumbers Hall, 1340 W. Washington Blvd., on November 14, 2007. Unlike its usual crowd, the hall this day was only slightly better than half-filled, with only seven visitors in the balcony when I looked.
Are the delegates dispirited, or was poor attendance due to the fact that the meeting was not held the first Wednesday of the month, and was sandwiched in between report card pick up days and the coming Thanksgiving holidays?
If the answer is that the delegates have plenty of reasons to be demoralized, then this meeting did not provide the ingredients for cheering up the spirits of the House as President Marilyn Stewart seemed in a hat-in-hand posture regarding the corrections that the Board needs to make in its disastrous new payroll program, PeopleSoft, and its equally inept new program for student records, IMPACT.
Reportedly, the payroll for Board employees is a mess with new mistakes created as old ones are “fixed.” June retirees are limping along on estimated payments, according to Recording Secretary Mary McGuire.
Besides the reported 700 or so grievances filed regarding payroll errors since February of 2007, Stewart stated that the Union would now file a grievance based on Article 44-45 of the contract about the duplication of record-keeping that the teachers are now forced to endure.
During the unofficial question period before the beginning of the meeting, Sullivan High School Delegate, Sandy Partee (spelling unverified as President Stewart has refused to publish a delegates handbook as has always been the practice), said IMPACT was a horrendous program which added to the teachers’ work. She said that you sometimes can’t log on, and when you do enter grades and attendance, the data often disappears. She said, “We keep getting the same answer: File a grievance. But it’s not working.”
A bad contract forced on the members, and now the Union begs
After totally capitulating to the mayor, ram-rodding through a bad, unprecedented five-year contract by any means possible, and proving that any of her talk of militant unionism was a sham, President Stewart now “puts the Board on notice” at Board meetings and in a letter to the Board in the delegates packet saying that the union will do.
“What?” you say, “Continue to do more of the same grievances regarding payroll and records?” Exactly.
However, the letter also adds the following threat to the Board: “Further be advised that if the raises negotiated in the new contract agreement are not implemented by the above-referenced date [first payroll in December], followed by the retroactive checks issued prior to the December winter break, the Union will explore further legal options, and may take actions which could embarrass the CPS in the eyes of parents, community and business leaders.”
I’m sure that the threat of more of the same grievances on payroll and records, just as did the ULP (Unfair Labor Practice) already filed, have CPS (Chicago Public Schools) CEO Arne Duncan and Board President Rufus Williams scared straight. Why did Stewart sign off on a contract when she knew all this was already going on?
They didn’t know about this, Duncan and Williams said at the October Board meeting, not of the problem, nor its magnitude. Since then, for example, the IMPACT people with director Bob Runcie have also said when the Union met with them that they thought report card pick-up days went perfectly. They didn’t know that the record-keeping program, IMPACT, made report-card pickup a catastrophe in many, and possibly most, schools.
So now that Duncan and Williams have been told, will the problems with IMPACT be corrected?
Situation hopeless: Teachers to inundate Board with emails
Marilyn Stewart seems to be assuming that the payroll and records fiascoes will not be corrected by virtue of the fact that now Arne Duncan and Rufus Williams admit that they know about the catastrophic results of the programs the Board has implemented without field-testing them first. As she said in her President’s Report, she also told them three years ago about schools not having enough computers and they promised to fix the problem which, to date Stewart says, is still not fixed.
She revealed her hopelessness by telling the House of Delegates to have teachers email the Board immediately every single time they run into a problem with IMPACT.
Delegates at this meeting were provided with a bright yellow flyer they are to post on the Union bulletin board. The flyer states, “If you run into any problems or complaints dealing with IMPACT, you can contact them directly through email: impact@cps.k12.il.us”.
I wonder if those functionaries running the IMPACT program will share these teacher emails with Duncan and Williams? with the mayor? Of course the mayor wouldn’t step up to the plate to do something for the Union whose leadership has now done so much for him with this five-year contract. He would no doubt twist the situation into somehow making it out to be the fault of the teachers and the failure of the public schools.
And hat-in-hand, Marilyn would still be standing there hoping he would do the right thing, or at least pretending to hope. On the other hand, she may be very cynical and is maybe just as satisfied to have taken on a second lucrative union officer’s job, that of Secretary-Treasurer of the IFT (Illinois Federation of Teachers) keeping the benefits and perks now of both her jobs top secret. She may run hat-in-hand but laughing all the way to the bank. While the former CTU President Lynch changed the constitution to say that being president of the CTU was a full-time job and she didn’t take on an IFT higher office, that’s been gotten around by Stewart taking a lesser one.
And the payroll problems? Oh, that’s still a nightmare for teachers and other school employees. Those too must be written up with specifics by the frustrated employees missing hours or days of pay, sick days, vacation days, overtime, travel allowances, and all the rest. What we need, we were told by grievance coordinator Colleen Dykas, is to bombard them with emails.
It’s like being at a school on probation and the probationary team justifies their pay by saying if a school event is not written up and in a binder, it didn’t happen. Eventually all these write-ups may take a truly Alice-in-Wonderland cast. It may come to pass that even the write-up doesn’t prove that it happened.
However, Stewart did say at this meeting that the raise would be implemented, according to the Board, on the December 4th payroll with retroactive checks to be available December 21st, 2007. Whew! So she won’t have to make good on the threat in the letter to the Board to explore further legal options and maybe even take actions which could be embarrassing to the Board. My, how draconian and extreme those measures would have been.
Stewart charges teachers to organize charter schools
President Marilyn Stewart was so eager to give the mayor his contract that she left the negotiating table without getting an agreement about the level of access our Union would have to the charter school campuses in order to organize them, a no-cost item which could easily have been negotiated.
There are union-organized charter schools in other parts of the country, but not here, according to Jessica Humphries, the charter school organizer for the CTU, IFT, and AFT (American Federation of Teachers) who came to the House of Delegates meeting in October, as well as November.
Humphries said, “There are union charter schools in L.A., in California, in Florida, Boston, New York, and Philly, but these are a minority of charter schools..There are no union charter schools in Chicago-none.”
She chided the delegates for not bringing in the names of teachers at charter schools as they had been asked to do at the October meeting by Stewart and Humphries.
Humphries asked the delegates how many had turned in the sheets they were given for submitting the names. “One, two?” she asked. “Not a good passing grade at all,” she said. Names can be faxed at 312-738-3011 or phoned in at 3010 or emailed to jessica@chicagoacts.org.
Bill Dolnick, city-wide social-work delegate, mirrored the wonderment of many delegates sitting listening to this, when he asked Humphries if wasn’t it right that the best time to reach these charter teachers would be when they were going in to school in the morning and leaving at the end of the school day. He asked if her ACTS (Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff) organization hadn’t considered leafleting these teachers at those times.
Humphries answered, “We need you to get involved. It can’t happen without you all.” She said her organization was working on a comprehensive plan, that yes they were planning a leaflet blitz and house visits, but, she said, “there are only three of us right now..” Humphries stated that there are 30 charter holders in Chicago with a total of 81 campuses.
Only three hired for organizing all those charter schools in Chicago?
And this a joint effort of the CTU, IFT, and AFT?
And these three organizers so well removed from the CTU offices with an office of their own at 833 W. Jackson Blvd., Suite 310, to which they are inviting teachers and other school employees to attend organizing meetings?
I would have thought that CTU officers and other staffers would be organizing the charter schools in Chicago, but apparently Stewart has well distanced the CTU from this effort.
Stewart answers charter question with gobbledegook
During the official question period, I waited to ask President Stewart a question about the charters. Three times she tried to skip over me at microphone one and delegate Lou Pyster at mike two and go directly to mike three, but the sergeant-at-arms at my mike helped me in not allowing that to happen. We kept saying, “Microphone one. It’s the turn of microphone one.”
In this case, it was convenient that since Marilyn has taken over, the sergeants at arms are stationed directly in front of the speakers at the microphones, ready to grab the mike if the president wants to cut off a speaker whose views she doesn’t like. It is also a tactic to intimidate. This was a change the House never voted on.
I asked Stewart that since she had rushed through a terrible contract, of an unprecedented five-year duration, without any relief for class size, without five guaranteed preparation periods for the elementary teachers (or even four in some cases), with increased costs in a terrible medical plan that has a reopener clause for the contract if medical costs exceed what they have yearly been exceeding, with reduced pay for overtime work, all this while acting as an accessory to the mayor in pretending that the schools would not have opened without this rush on the contract, why hadn’t she at least negotiated a no-cost item such as union access to the charter schools for purposes of organizing them as she easily could have done.
I would have liked to use up my full three minutes, and talk further about all the union teaching jobs (and pension fund monies) lost because of the charter schools, but President Stewart cut me off before I could utter another word.
Vice-president Ted Dallas had already said in his report in regard to schools with oversized classes that if we added a teacher to just half of those schools, we would add 350 jobs.
How many jobs would we add if we unionized the charters? I wanted to ask.
Marilyn Stewart cut me off to say that she did indeed have full access to the charter school campuses since many of them were housed in the same building they shared with a public school. She said she could go there at anytime and talk to the teachers all she wanted.
Since she immediately called for the speaker at the next mike, I couldn’t ask her why, if she had such access, were we even talking about the problems of organizing the charter teachers. Such foolishness. Such a disingenuous answer to a question Stewart had no answer for.
Retirees-the second-class delegates
At the next microphone stood my fellow retiree delegate Lou Pyster who made a motion that retirees get their union newspaper mailed first class because in the bulk mailings now used, retirees get it sometimes a month or more later than other union members. The motion was voted to be deferred to committee and will be taken up at the next meeting.
The only other motion entertained by the House was the one agenda Item for Action: “Approve the resolution recognizing Paraprofessionals and School-Related Personnel (PSRPs).” This motion easily passed by voice vote, and of course there was nothing there to dispute, though Stewart had to show what a friend she was to the PSRPs by saying that no one better dare speak against this resolution praising their work.
This motion of the executive board is just the type of motion that the House of Delegates is given to vote on at many meetings. The real decision-making powers of the House have been mostly taken away by the present Union chiefs.
As Gerald Adler, another retiree who has also served as a delegate, never tires of reminding us, as he did on this meeting date with a hand-out in the lobby, our By-laws in Article IX clearly state that “Under the union membership itself, the decisions of the House of Delegates on union matters shall be supreme and final.”
He addressed the latest assault on the retiree delegates which was the gag order placed on them during the three contract meetings held in August by Marilyn Stewart who said that only the delegates who would be affected by the contract could speak. Adler rightly said that this ruling that retiree delegates may not speak out on contract issues is nowhere found in our Constitution and By-laws. He said that in his 40 years of union activism, a gag order had never been invoked, ever. He stated that if the procedures of the House were to be changed, then the House itself would have to do so by a 2/3rds vote.
Stewart did not conduct such a vote, and she made the change unilaterally. I feel that her work against retiree delegates stems from her fear that retirees know the history and the procedures that the many new delegates are only just learning and she wants to silence the retiree delegates before they expose her corrupt maneuverings.
The monthly retiree meetings, separate from the House meetings, are deliberately kept unpolitical and are run by Stewart’s chosen retiree functional vice-president. Retirees who attend do not even know who their delegates are or are encouraged to address any problems to them. The rules for the election of this vice-president were never formally adopted in the House on advice from the Rules and Election committee. They were imposed unilaterally by the financial secretary, Mark Ochoa, with no reference to the House.
In the latest election for the Pension Fund Board of Trustees, the Pension Fund mailed out 21,540 ballots to retirees of the CPS. RTAC (the Retired Teachers Association of Chicago) has over 10,000 members. However, the November membership report in the delegates’ packet of the House states that our Union has only 3,942 members (out of the 21,540 retirees!).
No more pension give-aways!
President Marilyn Stewart crowed at this meeting that because one of the three newly elected trustees is also the CTU retiree functional vice-president, the CTU now has a majority representation on the Board of Trustees (7 of 12). Mary Sharon Reilly defeated Vaughn Barber. Stewart and other leaders of her party have intimated that the other trustees serve the interests of the administrators who are also part of the teachers pension fund.
However, it is our very own Union and its majority on the Pension Fund Board of Trustees that has promoted “pension holidays” in the past. In 1990, the contract that Jacqueline Vaughn brought in was funded by a pension give-away wherein the pension monies went to the CPS Board for three years instead of to the Teachers Pension Fund. This was our own money that was a gift to the Board as the Union agreed that it would never be repaid.
The Union again wanted to do this in 1993, again under the leadership of Marilyn’s party, the UPC (the United Progressive Caucus), but this time the heavily Republican general assembly, and especially the state senate wouldn’t change the law to allow for this to happen because they wanted to thwart the CTU.
In 1995, with the amendatory act that took away many union bargaining rights, property taxes in the hundreds of millions of dollars were switched to go to the CPS Board instead of to the Pension Fund. Some say the Union deliberately muffed the battle against that when former CTU President Tom Reese pushed through an early Union contract on behalf of the mayor and his impending election and the courts found that he had already negotiated in terms of the amendatory act.
I hope that the CTU majority on the Pension Fund Board of Trustees does not lead us to any more pension give-aways endangering the retirement futures of all of us.
Retirees are entitled to one House delegate for every 100 retired union members. In January, 2006, 31 retiree delegates were elected. We’ve been entitled to 39 for many months now, but Marilyn’s party, the UPC (United Progressive Caucus) does not fill these vacancies in a timely way with interim elections as needed (even when delegates die), as it does with other categories of delegates. Judging by their performance in the past, we will not have our allotment of 39 retiree delegates until the next election of January, 2009.
But then what service can the retiree delegates provide, if Marilyn Stewart and company can unilaterally silence them, keep them from attending the delegate workshops, and make no provisions to include them in lobbying efforts-just for some examples of our disenfranchisement?
What else is Stewart hiding?
Retiree delegate Lou Pyster has also been asking that the House of Delegates be given copies of any off-contract agreements the Union makes with the Board. He asked again at this meeting for the delegates to receive the specifics of the Fresh Start Program where teachers in ten schools who have agreed to the program will be mentoring their colleagues-other teachers. Of course, the fear of teachers is that this will result in teachers firing teachers.
Our Union leadership seems to want to keep this program under wraps, and during a question period, Recording Secretary Mary McGuire told Pyster that the teachers involved had the specifics and said that she knew that an attorney involved already had given Pyster a copy. Pyster said that the point wasn’t that he would be given a copy, but that all of the delegates would also have the specifics so they would know what their Union is doing. McGuire said that when the program was approved, the delegates would get copies. She declined to say that it would be at the December meeting.
Pyster has also asked that the delegates receive copies of the proposal for merit pay, a program to which the Union has seemingly acquiesced though the program is considered divisive by most teachers and one that cannot be implemented fairly. Pyster asked what the secret was, as the AFT newspaper had already published a write-up of another merit pay program.
The legislative front
The Social Security Fairness Act Petition is now circulating and delegates will have them at the schools. If everyone gets ten signatures, not just from teachers, but neighbors and family members as well, the needed two million signatures will be easily achieved according to President Stewart.
This petition is to help pass two bills in Washington which would eradicate the unfair social security offset and windfall penalties levied on teachers and other CTU members who have earned social security or who are married to a social-security-covered spouse. The Windfall reduces an educator’s earned Social Security from previous employment. The Offset eliminates an educator’s Social Security benefits from a deceased spouse. This is only true in Illinois and fourteen other states.
Pam Massarsky, Union legislative coordinator in Springfield, addressed the House and spoke of the dysfunction, factionalism, and name-calling of the Democrats who are in control but can’t get anything accomplished. For example, a bill that would provide someone to help a diabetic child is stuck in a senate committee since May. She received applause from the House when she said that no PAC (Political Action Committee) contributions would go to the senate or house leadership this year.
She described Governor Rod Blagojevich as the governor who gave us so much hope to begin with only to dash it immediately. She and lobbyist Traci Cobb-Evans ran into the governor in the capitol building where he comes in through the basement door so as to avoid media, and he said, “Pam, we’re Democrats, right? We believe in universal medical care, right?” Pam said she answered him by saying, “Yes, but not if we can’t pay for the programs already in place.”
Massarsky said she told the governor that the schools needed restructuring in funding, and that we needed 15 in a class like they have in the suburbs.
She asked that the delegates not endorse Senator Iris Martinez who picks up our bills only to kill them. She asked that we do endorse Representative Rich Bradley who is the opponent of Martinez so that we would have a friend in the senate.
Don’t back a constitutional convention
Massarsky also warned the House about the call for a constitutional convention which will be on the ballot as it must be every twenty years. The 1907 constitution is in effect now, she said. She said that the Tribune urged voters to vote Yes, the Tribune said, so that a provision could be added for the recall of Governor Blagojevich.
She said that this was a scam because the constitution could be amended to provide a recall. She said don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. She said what the people behind the Tribune view really want is to take out the provision that says that, first of all, the state must pay pensions. She says it could easily happen that they would say we’re out of money so let’s pay only 25%. She said spread the word not to vote for a constitutional convention.
After this report, President Stewart added that the governor would not be elected again, and that these people were really after the funding for the pensions.
Other info gleaned at the meeting
An AIO (Area Instructional Officer), according to consultant Gail Koffman, said that she hoped that teachers would act professionally and would volunteer their half of the inservice day which is self-directed. Stewart added you give them an inch and they take a mile. Stewart said she has told the Board unequivocally that teachers need a whole day for records day, she said.
The Board will pay no interest on retroactive pay, according to Mary McGuire, as that initiative would have needed to be started earlier.
Nurse Helen Ramirez discussed MRSA saying the best defense was still the washing of hands.
Treasurer Linda Porter said it’s not so much that the Union has a budget deficit, but it’s that with the payroll problems, dues are not coming in the right way.
PSRP Field Representative June Davis said that a principal can request that a clerk get training on the payroll program PeopleSoft. Call Bob Runcie at the Board, she said.
A delegate asked whether there was any talk of increasing the delegates’ stipend of $45 per meeting, unchanged for the past 20 years she said. Recording Secretary McGuire said that the stipend was based on the expensive parking that delegates had to pay for when the meetings were held in the Loop, and that parking was now free. She added that a discussion of this item, however, would take place at the next executive board meeting.
[In the 34 years I’ve been a union member, activist delegates were always leery of money or freed-up school period incentives for delegates, as it was feared that unscrupulous teachers would run for delegate for the wrong reasons.]
For the December House of Delegates meeting, the Union is going green and not providing hard copy of what delegates have been getting in their packets at meetings. Delegates will have to go on line to get these materials, President Stewart said. I wonder how many will remember to go on line before the December meeting as this was not emphasized. I wonder too what materials will still be provided at the meeting in hard copy.
I like going green, and I understand that this move is touted as saving the Union money. I wonder though how these savings will be used. Perhaps despite their obscene and secret perks and benefits, the officers and staffers still feel insufficiently remunerated.
The meeting was adjourned at 6:00 p.m.
