A group within the Chicago Teachers Union is launching a new campaign to challenge President Jesse Sharkey and Vice President Stacy Davis Gates in the union’s spring election.
The movement by the Members First Caucus comes two weeks after the union narrowly voted to accept Chicago Public Schools’ COVID-19 safety agreement and end a dayslong work stoppage.
“The current leadership of the CTU sees work stoppages and strikes as the first step, and not the last one. They are far more focused on being in front of the camera and advancing their own political careers than delivering for us,” the caucus says in a minutelong video posted to its website and on social media Tuesday.
CTU and CPS spent months negotiating a set of safety protocols beyond indoor mask-wearing for this school year, but had not reached an agreement by the time the highly transmissible omicron variant fueled a surge in CPS student and staff cases. Students returned from winter break for two days of school before the union, with 73% of the vote, approved a measure to work remotely for nearly two weeks.
CPS school psychologist Mary Esposito-Usterbowski, a Members First presidential candidate, said in a statement that “if the CTU’s leadership was proactive, rather than reactive, we would have had a plan in place before winter break to be safe from COVID upon returning to our schools.”
With about 56% of the vote, after days of canceled classes, the union accepted CPS’ safety proposal that included COVID-19 metrics that would spur a school to transition to remote learning; KN95 masks for students and staff members; and more COVID-19 testing opportunities beyond the weekly program that’s mandatory only for unvaccinated staff members.
In a phone interview Tuesday, Davis Gates said the split in the latest rank-and-file vote wasn’t about union leadership, but “had everything to do with our boss and the frustration and the exhaustion that our members feel when they don’t have partnership.”
She said she’s encouraged by the union’s work over the last decade.
“We lost scores of Black kids (for) years prior to 2010 through school closings and school turnaround. Right now we have a moratorium on school closings that’s legally binding,” Davis Gates said. “We just settled a lawsuit with the Chicago Board of Education, which will give about $10 million to Black teachers that were fired as a result of racially disparate school turnarounds.”
Responding to accusations that CTU leaders are more interested in advancing their own political careers, Davis Gates emphasized her priorities are being a mom to three CPS students and advocating for students and CTU members through her union leadership role. However, she didn’t rule out a mayoral run Tuesday.
She did deny Members First’s claims about CTU financial mismanagement. The caucus said the union had $8.8 million in cash reserves in January 2015 that has since been depleted. Davis Gates said there was a surplus last year, and there may be one this year as well.
CTU has about 25,000 members. It’s unclear how many of these educators align with Members First, but about 5,600 people belong to the caucus’s Facebook group. The Members First slate includes vice president candidate Sandi Hoggatt, a case manager at Kenwood Academy High School; recording secretary candidate María Soto, a clerk at George Washington High School; and financial secretary candidate Philip Weiss, a social worker at Rickover Naval Academy.
The union election is scheduled for May 20. The Caucus of Rank and File Educators slate, led by Sharkey, won 66% of the vote in the last election, three years ago. Members First had put forth a different set of challengers at that time.
“Every three years, our union has something akin to an inter-squad scrimmage where teammates get to debate on the issues that are important to our school communities,” Davis Gates said. “I really value and appreciate the intensity of our democracy within our union.”