
CHICAGO —By a 97%-3% margin in an 85% turnout, members of the Chicago Teachers Union/AFT Local 1 ratified a new four-year contract notable for higher investment in schools with students of color and protections against the depredations—including ICE raids—of the. Trump administration.
The pact has raises of 17%-20% over its life, retroactive to when the old pact expired almost a year ago. But it also invests in more community schools, mandates schools, like the city as a whole, become sanctuaries for students, teachers and staff whom Trump’s raiders demand to deport, and restores art, music and other classes cut by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a succession of “corporate” school chancellors.
The contract is notable not just for improvements, but also for its inclusion of strong progressive programs. Ratification occurred on the same day Trump threatened to cut off all federal money to “sanctuary cities,” which include New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
Those include “protections for academic freedom, Black history, and culturally relevant curriculum” at a time when the Trump regime abolished diversity, equity and inclusion programs and offices in the federal government and when the corporate class, eager to curry favor with Trump, did so, too.
Trump’s whitewashing of history extends even to removing Jackie Robinson’s bio from the archives of the military and dumping a picture of the Enola Gay bomber.
Robinson was a distinguished and barrier-breaking soldier in World War II before breaking baseball’s color line. And Trump Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former right-wing Fox “News” commentator, yanked the photo of the plane—not because it dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima— but because it had the word “gay.”
“Democracy may be under attack everywhere but it’s thriving in our union and our members just resoundingly voted to lower class sizes, fund sports teams, teach the truth, and protect LGBTQIA+ students, faculty and staff,” CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said. “We remain committed to ushering in a better school day for our students, educators, and our city.”
Chicago Labor Federation President Bob Reiter, who attended the press conference announcing the ratification, hit that anti-Trump theme, too.
“Right now, we’re not just seeing Trump deconstructing the institutions of our government but, with” Trump Education Secretary Linda “McMahon, they are also deconstructing our education infrastructure.”
McMahon, like Trump’s prior Education Secretary, Elizabeth “Betsy” DeVos, is a GOP donator. DeVos disliked public schools and their unionized teachers. The president gave McMahon a mission to close down the Education Department. And Musk has obliged by slashing its programs and half of its headquarters staff.
That led Reiter to emphasize the anti-Trump measures. “When they wipe out the fundamental structures to protect students at the federal level, we need a strong district with a strong union to advocate for students and their families. Do you want to see differences on the ground in your community? Invest in your schools,” he said.
Gates said the new contract will give students in the fourth-largest school district in the continental U.S. “access to arts, sports, wrap-around supports, and libraries,” all of which were yanked by Emanuel and the corporate school CEOs he named, including Arne Duncan, who later became President Barack Obama’s Education Secretary.
Gates said the “transformative contract turns away from decades of disinvesting in Black children and turns toward creating the world-class education system for every single student in CPS no matter their zip code.”
Besides the general pay hike and more paid family and medical leave, the new pact includes incentives to keep veteran teachers, especially Black men, in a school system whose students are approximately 90% Black or Latino.
It also doubles the number of libraries and librarians, mandates smaller class sizes from kindergarten all the way through high school, puts social workers and nurses “in every school, every instructional day,” doubles bilingual educational support staffers and adds more staffers for early childhood education.
The union’s cause was aided by new Mayor Brandon Johnson, a longtime CTU member and shop steward who drafted his own five-year plan to aid the schools. It also overcomes obstruction by current Chicago Public Schools Chancellor/CEO Dennis Martinez. His reign has featured constant clashes with both the union and the city’s school board.
Other features of the contract include:
- Doubles the bilingual education staffing supports for students.
- Additional staffing, curricular and enrollment supports for Early Childhood education students and programs.
- Creates 215 more case manager positions district-wide to support students with disabilities.
- A cost of living adjustment of 17-20% compounded (tied to inflation) over the four years of the contract.
- Provide new steps that compensate veteran educators for their experience to keep them in the district.
- Increases in prep time for clinicians, elementary and special education teachers so students arrive to classrooms ready for them.
We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!