USA : Chicago Teachers Union helping charter teachers in contract fight
With the Chicago Teachers Union mulling a possible walkout as early as next month, another school contract fight is unfolding outside the spotlight that could result in a strike at one
of the city's largest charter school networks.
Educators at the UNO Charter School Network, a chain of campuses that's enrolled about 8,000 students and was once run by the clout-heavy United Neighborhood Organization, are careful to say they're not sure if they'll schedule a strike authorization vote, much less a walkout. But United Educators of UCSN leaders have scheduled what a bargaining team's spokeswoman described as an informational meeting.
"It's all about the members, the members have to decide," said Erica Stewart, who helped organize the charter's union and teaches fifth grade at the network's Cisneros campus in the Brighton Park neighborhood.
"None of us want to strike, nobody wants to put the families through that," Stewart said. "But when management is not really giving us a chance, or listening to us or treating us with respect, then it's something that might be considered."
The unionized charter teachers aren't part of the CTU. They're represented by the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff, a branch of the American Federation of Teachers. Teachers at each unionized charter network operate under separate contracts negotiated with each school operator.
The roughly 400 UNO charter teachers are fighting in entirely different legal territory from the one that sets rules for how and when the CTU's teachers can strike. But that hasn't deterred the CTU from giving some significant help to their charter brothers and sisters.
Robert Bloch, the CTU's attorney and one of its top negotiators, is at the bargaining table for UCSN's teachers. A CTU field representative has helped UCSN teachers organize, as part of a 2015 deal with the teachers union representing several of Chicago's publicly-funded but independently-operated charter networks.
The charter teachers' demands align with the CTU, including calls for pay raises and preserving a practice where the school system pays the bulk of teachers' pension contributions.
"With only weeks to go before the contract expires, the parties have very significant differences and there's no indication yet that they'll be able to bridge those questions," Bloch said.
For the CTU, a walkout would upend a conventional notion that charters can operate outside the influence of organized labor.
"The basic story is that the charter schools are now coming within the rubric of regular public education and they're finally getting organized," Bloch said. "To me, that's a sea change in the way that they're going to be operating. That they're going to have to account for the collective voice of their staff."
Andrew Broy, head of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, cried foul about CTU's involvement. He calls it a conflict of interest because CTU has tried to negotiate a limit with CPS on the number of charter schools that could open.
"It's no secret that the Chicago Teachers Union is gladly anti-charter, now they're at the bargaining table negotiating against charter school management," Broy said. "It's a way to undermine the charter movement, no doubt about it."
The charter school network is working through a divorce with UNO, after matters including a contracting scandal and trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission ousted former CEO Juan Rangel.
The school network did not respond to a request to interview Chief Executive Officer Richard Rodriguez. But the organization emailed families Friday to say the school network would continue to negotiate with its union and intended to "provide a reasonable compensation package … to our teachers and all of our staff."
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