Chicago Teachers Union's new 'Executive Team' destroys thousands of pages of union history in move from the Merchandise Mart to 1901 W. Carroll St...
The leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union -- a small group now referring to itself as the "Executive Team" -- ordered union staff to throw our or destroy thousands of documents and photographs pertaining to the union's history when the union moved in November 2016 from its former Merchandise Mart offices to the new union headquarters at 1901 W. Carroll St. on the city's West Side.
The destruction of documents and photographs included research materials assembled by this reporter when he was working for the union as a research consultant. The garbage was also filled with thousand of grievances going back to the 1960s. Those grievances provide an outline the union's contract enforcement history. The destruction of history was ordered by the union's leadership. The CTU is now apparently being governed by a body calling itself the "Executive Team." According to reliable sources at the CTU, the so-called "Executive Team" consists of the union's four elected officers and four or five individuals appointed by the union's president, Karen Lewis.
The "Leadership Team consists of six or seven individuals, including the union's four officers, and has been making decisions on union policy and activities ignoring the elected union's Executive Board and the members of the House of Delegates, both of which are in the CTU Constitution and By-Laws. No explanation has been given to delegates or members as to why the largest part of the union's documented history was ordered put into the garbage at the time of the recent move. Although some union leaders claim that the union has gone to a "paper free" office, mot of the documents that were destroyed were not put into digital form before the move.
By: Margaret Wilson
Destruction of our history
The Union had no right to destroy all of those historical documents without authorization from the membership! If we don't preserve our heritage, who will?