Chicago – For the first time in more than a decade, Chicago public school teachers have a new contract without strike or threat of a strike. The four -year agreement includes salary increases, hiring more teachers and class size limits.
While the negotiations between the Union of Chicago teachers and the district did not intensify this time, there was an unprecedented agitation around the unusual one -year conversations. The drama included the shooting of the school superintendent, the entire board resignation and Historical elections That tried the power of the union.
Now, Chicago faces uncertainty with Trump’s administration Education cuts And imminent questions about how the fourth largest school district in the country will pay the contract.
While all parties are celebrating the agreement now, there has been no shortage of turbulence.
Perhaps the main reason why negotiations did not become a strike, as was the case in 2019 and 2012It was union of union Mayor Brandon Johnson. A former teacher and organizer of CTU, the union helped choose it in 2023.
It spent months trying to expel the CEO of the public schools of Chicago Pedro Martínez, A designated of former mayor Lori Lightfoot, in a public dispute.
“All that chaos and agitation clearly dragged the negotiation and probably closed it for a good amount of time,” said Robert Bruno, professor of labor and labor relations at the University of Illinois.
Johnson wanted a high interest loan of $ 300 million to cover the new contract and a pension payment, which Martínez and the Board rejected as fiscally irresponsible. In October, the Board resigned in protest.
The following month, the city celebrated its first school elections. The Transition Board, a mixture of candidates backed by union, supporters of the Autonomous School and Independent, includes designated mayor until it is completely chosen in 2027.
In December, the Board moved to fire Martínez, although it will remain until June. At one point, Martínez accused new members of the meeting in private with the union and won the restriction order of a judge.
The union began the contract conversations last year with more than 700 applications, a record for the union of almost 30,000 members.
Union leaders say that their goal is always equality in Segregated city. Approximately 70% of the 325,000 students in the district are low -income and more than 80% are black or Latin.
But district officials said those high requests would have cost more than $ 10 billion. The annual district budget is approximately $ 10 billion.
The price of the new agreement is approximately $ 1.5 billion.
“We stayed faithful to our values,” Martínez said after the agreement was announced. “We were successful in maintaining the best interest of our students always in the center.”
Both parties promoted transparency. For the first time, some negotiation sessions were transmitted publicly.
It was also the first time in almost approximately decades to the union, it was allowed to negotiate issues such as class size. In 1995, a Illinois legislature led by Republicans approved a law that limits collective bargaining rights to a large extent to pay and benefits. Democratic leaders changed that in 2021.
The president of CTU, Stacy Davis Gates, concluded the contract as a victory that protects students, particularly those who are vulnerable under the presidency of Donald Trump.
“It’s big, it’s complex and is certainly a step in the right direction,” he said.
Johnson also took a return of the victory, announcing his union ties.
“When I was running for a position, they said it would be a responsibility,” journalists recently told. “But it seems to me that no other mayor could have brought to the public schools of Chicago, the Board of Education, the mayor’s office and the CTU to the table to ensure that our children obtain exactly what they deserve, which is a complete and complete education.”
According to the agreement, teachers will obtain retroactive increases of 4% as the contract expired last year. Then they will obtain increases of 4% or 5% each year later.
As of next year, the teacher’s median payment will be $ 98,000. At the end of the contract in 2028, the average teacher will win around $ 110,000, according to the district.
The district, which employs approximately 7,000 teachers, will hire 800 more and almost 100 additional librarians. Teachers will get additional 10 minutes of daily preparation time, for 70 minutes in total.
In addition, class sizes will be limited by degree level. For example, the Infantes Garden will have the smallest and will be limited to 25 students.
The union leaders announced on Monday that 97% of the members who voted approved the agreement. Davis Gates described it as “overwhelmingly historical levels” of support for a contract that was based on the work of previous years, including strikes.
Experts say that what happened in Chicago could give impulse to other unions. Los Angeles teachers, who are currently negotiating, CTU said in a recent newsletter.
“Organizing is how we resist the political agendas to dismantle our public schools and public services. And we can win our future in Los Angeles, just like our Brothers of the Union in Chicago,” said the Bulletin of Los Angeles United teachers.
Even so, there are serious financing questions.
The district has an annual deficit of approximately $ 500 million and a pending pension refund from $ 175 million to the city. The district is also about to enter negotiations by contract with the directors union.
Martínez said that the first year of the contract is covered, but after that there is uncertainty.
Where the two parties agree is that the conversations took too much.
When Trump assumed the position, the union organizers said that there was more seriousness in their work, even when both parties in the democratic strength are aligned in issues that include Immigrant rights.
“We had a sense of urgency, we had a sense of responsibility,” said Davis Gates. “The district shared responsibility, but not the urgency.”
School officials accused the union of taking their time.
“We should have had this contract months,” Martínez said.
