After eight months of more and more tense contract negotiations, the Chicago Lecturers Union has now narrowed its variety of calls for in an effort to land a deal within the subsequent month, the union and Chicago Public Colleges officers stated.
On the identical time, a CTU proposal about instructor assistants has led to a labor dispute with considered one of its greatest allies, SEIU Native 73, which is accusing the academics union of attempting to raid its members. SEIU has threatened authorized motion.
Regardless of the progress between CPS and CTU, that demand is considered one of many thorny matters nonetheless on the desk. The CTU put forth an inventory of about 160 calls for this week that its leaders say lay out a street map to getting a deal — that’s down from greater than 700 proposals the varsity district estimated would price $10 billion over 4 years and catapult the cash-strapped college system additional into debt.
The CTU goals to get a deal carried out by mid-January, earlier than President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated. That’s additionally across the time the brand new 21-member partially elected college board can be seated. The 2 sides are negotiating day by day.
Neither CPS nor the CTU might present a brand new price estimate for the scaled-down listing of calls for.
CPS officers stated they only acquired the listing Monday and “don’t but see a major discount in the price of the calls for.” S&P World Scores, a credit score company, issued a warning on Tuesday that if CPS doesn’t lower bills or discover extra income, there could possibly be implications for its credit standing over the following few years.
The $10 billion estimate that district officers shared with the general public late final month included $5.5 billion in CTU calls for for 13,400 new employees to be employed, together with 7,000 instructor assistants.
The union has referred to as that declare deceptive.
“The CEO has been saying we’ve acquired $10 billion price of proposals on the desk, talking about our preliminary contract proposals from almost eight months in the past,” CTU Deputy Basic Counsel Thad Goodchild stated. “Bargaining has moved lots within the intervening months and we expect there’s a path to a deal right here.”
The union is now asking for six% wage will increase in every of the primary two years of the contract and 5% every in Years 3 and 4, down from its unique proposal of 9% in annually. CPS has provided 4% in 12 months 1 and as much as 5% in every of the following three.
As for the staffing calls for, Goodchild stated the CTU needs a phased-in method to hiring, not a direct large wave.
The CTU has backed off of a number of staffing proposals, he stated, and is asking for a lot fewer than 7,000 instructor assistants. He accused CPS of inflating that determine.
Instructor assistants, an typically ignored group of faculty help staffers, have confirmed to be a key level of rivalry. The union ratcheted up its public rhetoric in opposition to CPS earlier this 12 months when many instructor assistant positions had been lower from college budgets.
Now, a CTU proposal that CPS think about hiring instructor assistants to help college students with particular wants has induced the dust-up with SEIU 73, the CTU’s largest sister union that spent six figures to assist vault Mayor Brandon Johnson to workplace.
Historically, these tasks fall beneath particular schooling classroom assistants represented by SEIU 73, who work individually with particular schooling college students and supply private care, reminiscent of feeding and toileting. The CTU has insisted the 2 job duties are comparable and that some instructor assistants already work with particular schooling college students. Instructor assistants and SECAs are among the many lowest paid employees within the district, most making lower than $50,000 yearly.
That stance has outraged SEIU Govt Vice President Stacia Scott, who stated the CTU proposal would break from present follow. Scott despatched a cease-and-desist letter to CPS to attempt to stop the district from bargaining with CTU over the problem.
“SECAs are excess of toileting and feeding in our faculties, and so decreasing their work down … does them a disservice for the respect that they need to be owed,” she stated. “It additionally creates the risk… that it will erode our bargaining unit over time.”
SEIU 73 sees its SECAs as a rising level of delight, having simply efficiently negotiated new protections and elevated coaching.
CPS employment data exhibits the district had 842 instructor assistant positions on the finish of September, a quantity that’s dwindling; in the meantime, there have been 7,213 particular schooling classroom assistants, a determine that’s growing.
That makes this challenge a giant deal for each unions.
The connection between unions on the identical employer is a crucial one. CTU and SEIU 73 went on strike collectively for brand spanking new contracts in 2019. Though SEIU landed a deal earlier than CTU, its members remained on picket strains in solidarity with academics.
However these relationships may be fragile too. The monetary well being of unions will depend on its dues-paying members.
The CTU has stated it merely needs to fill vacancies that assist children.
“How we might outline it’s, it’s a raid,” Scott stated. “That’s the union time period for it. And when you gown it up fairly, on the finish of the day, it’s nonetheless a raid.”
