Chicago Teachers Union pushes AFT demand for May Day contract expirations

A fighting AFT President Randi Weingarten (center, at podium) at her union convention in Houston, where the delegates signed onto the call by the United Auto Workers for nationwide and worldwide action by all workers on May Day, 2028. On that day they plan to have contracts that expire for all workers and to present themselves to the corporate bosses of the nation and the world with powerful worker unity. | AFT via X (formerly Twitter)

HOUSTON —The Chicago Teachers Union is leading rising demands, which AFT agreed to, for common teachers’ contract expiration days nationwide, on May Day 2028.

“The AFT will echo” Auto Workers President Shawn Fain’s “call for aligning contract expirations for May 1, 2028 and…will encourage all our locals to consider this common expiration as a useful tactic in the fight to advance racial, economic, and social justice,” the union’s convention delegates, meeting in Houston, decided.

CTU has already laid the May Day bargaining date on the table in talks with the Chicago Public Schools and Baltimore and Minneapolis AFT locals are not far behind. But they’re not the first to bring up the idea, and it’s not just confined to teachers.

And all the unions involved have pushed May Day because it’s the international workers’ holiday.

The Auto Workers gained May Day expiration in their successful Stand Up campaign for better contracts with the Detroit automakers. Fain lauded the AFT for following its lead, as convention delegates OK’d the May Day demand the day before he spoke.

But Fain wants to expand the May Day deadline not just nationwide but worldwide. He said he’s already contacted unions overseas about it.

“We want to create a mass movement—a general strike if we have to—to win our fair share not just for workers here but for working-class people all over this globe,” Fain told the delegates. “You guys passed a resolution to push unions to do just that.”

“@AFTunion just overwhelmingly passed @CTULocal1 and @BTUBaltimore resolution to align union contracts across the U.S. with @UAW for a common expiration of May 1, 2028 to win more for working people in bargaining, at the statehouse & all the way up to the White House,” CTU Vice President Jackson Potter, the local’s leader on the cause, tweeted.

Waged a war on workers

“Big business and their political allies have waged a war on workers,” the AFT’s May Day expiration resolution, which delegates adopted, starts. “The war on workers has led to deteriorating conditions and spiraling income inequality for working families.”

Unions are fighting back, working to repeal state no-strike laws, and drawing huge support from the U.S. at large (71%), and young people in particular (88%), but “must find creative ways to maximize our economic power and fight against corporate greed,” it reads.

The common contract expiration date of May Day four years from now, and the possibility of a general strike are among those creative ways, AFT delegates decided.

Common dates for strikes are not a new idea. Several years ago, Unite HERE came up with a common expiration date for contracts for all its hotel workers in major convention cities, including Chicago and Houston. That put hotel chains—such as Hyatt and Hilton—on notice that they couldn’t pit unionists against each other, city by city.

While there have been no nationwide general strikes in the U.S. for decades, general strikes in specific cities and industries—and even general strike threats—got workers the raises and benefits they demanded. One recent national strike threat got great results not just for that union but for millions of other workers.

Then-President Donald Trump, an anti-worker Republican, locked out non-essential federal workers for 35 days in 2018-19 to force Congress to fund his racist Mexican Wall. Essential ones, such as air traffic controllers and flight attendants, had to stay on the job. The feds among them were unpaid.

The Association of Flight Attendants/CWA took matters into its own hands. Union President Sara Nelson advocated a general strike unless the government re-opened and controllers and other essential workers got paid. Facing huge losses, the airlines successfully forced Trump to back down.

Before Chicago’s and Baltimore’s local, or any other, can tackle the May Day end date plan in upcoming bargaining, it must deal with current issues. That’s the case in those two cities.

The present Baltimore contract runs from July 1, 2023-June 30, 2026. Talks for a new one have not been planned, partly because the Baltimore school board is starting a national search for a new superintendent. Both the Teachers and the union for school principals and administrators demand the search be open, accountable and accessible to parents, students, teachers and the public.

The Chicago contract expires next year, but is subject to decisions of Mayor Brandon Johnson—a former CTU shop steward–the state legislature and Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker. CTU members rallied on July 25 to demand fulfillment of the state’s full-funding promises for the Chicago Public Schools. CTU’s proposals include the May Day expiration date. The board, following Superintendent Carlos Martinez, voted to cut the budget and leave hundreds of positions unfilled.

“The boss will always tell workers there isn’t money for them. Instead of weaponizing the budgeting process to undermine negotiations, CPS leadership should be working with us to pursue solutions to guarantee students don’t walk into unstaffed classrooms when they go back to school,” said CTU President Stacy Davis Gates.

“If we can find money for skyscrapers, stadiums and [to settle] police abuse lawsuits, we can find money for Chicago’s students. It used to be acceptable to balance the budget on the backs of Black and Latino youth on the South and West Sides. That Is no longer the case in Chicago. The district, city, and state can’t be like people who finish dining out and then point to the other to pick up the tab.”

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CONTRIBUTOR

Mark Gruenberg

Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.