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UNION NEWS
Partisan bickerings continue to disrupt monthly Chicago Teachers Union
meetings
By Terry Daniels
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 The February House
of Delegates meeting took place on the usual first Wednesday of the month,
February 6, 2002, at Plumbers Hall, located at 1340 West Washington Blvd.
At 3:45 p.m. when I
arrived in the large parking lot area, which can be entered from both
Randolph St. and Washington Blvd., there was no parking space to be found.
In that situation, one can play a circle-the-lot-and-wait-for-someone-to-leave
strategy or find street parking, which is not too difficult, but gives
you a little walk to and from the meeting. The parking lot does empty
out closer to 4:30 p.m. when the trade schools and other enterprises close,
but which is unfortunately the official starting time of the union meeting
and would cause you to run a little late.
The gauntlet as you go in
The foyer just inside
the building sported the usual suspects this day, with Substance newspaper
being sold; the World newspaper given away (with donations accepted);
and outside on the sidewalk, an assistant principal who teaches as Olivet
Nazarene University offering a flyer about the school’s graduate
studies.
Also outside of the
foyer was a representative from the gubernatorial race. Representatives
from both the Roland Burris and the Rod Blagojevich campaigns had been
out in full force at the time of the January meeting last month, distributing
buttons, bumper stickers, and signs.
Only the Paul Vallas
campaign was conspicuously absent both months. I hear through the grapevine
that he tried to tell our union leadership that he had the support of
80 percent of the teachers, and that they had to tell him that their information
sources said different.
Back inside the foyer,
CTU President Deborah Lynch and her sidekick Treasurer Maureen Callaghan
were giving each delegate and visitor a red, white, and blue Chicago Teachers
Union computer mouse pad (on which I’ve been pushing around my mouse
as I compose this report). A nice gift. A useful gift. A gift to treasure
since the CTU has been such a big part of my life for thirty years.
A leaflet from the
defeated former union president Tom Reece’s United Progressive Caucus
(UPC) was distributed by Ted Dallas (delegate from Wells High School),
retiree delegate Charles Usher, and others. The leaflet was asking that
delegates vote down what the leaflet called “the PACT packed Executive
Board recommendation for CTU Trustee” (who is Leandres White, the
long-time delegate from Chicago Vocational High School) and further asking
that they vote him in (Ted Dallas himself) on a substitute motion (as
is clearly prohibited by the union constitution for this kind of recommendation).
Later we’ll get
to the full report on what was foreshadowed in the UPC leaflet. When the
UPC lost the motion and the proposal for White passed 153 to 125, they
called for a division of the house, until someone finally called for a
quorum, which ended the meeting so that no further business could be conducted.
The meeting suddenly ended just before 6:30 p.m.
My rant on such antics
in last month’s report caused me to forget to even mention the gubernatorial
race presence, so let me try to contain myself now. However, suffice it
to say that I take great exception to the line in this UPC/Dallas leaflet
that said “Let’s return to a democratic union!” When the
UPC was in power, it was a miracle when even one member of the opposition
won a seat on the Executive Board for the briefest time possible. Now,
even besting the Oedipal irony of ironies, they appeal to and for democracy
which the newly elected union leadership is probably bending over too
far backwards to provide.
Come to the meetings!
In this report, I always
repeat the “first Wednesday of the month” information, the time,
and the address, as well as the parking information, in the hope that
armed with this information more visitors will come to observe the meetings
and make their judgments about how the delegates are representing the
membership. As you will read further in this report, the meetings are
not just vital to our well being, but entertaining and action-packed as
well. Rarely will you be able to find a venue where you can see some teachers
and other school personnel act out like this.
Also, the new union
leadership has made the meetings visitor-friendly. Under the UPC leadership
that some people still long for, union members who did not hold delegates’
badges were “visitors.” Visitors were segregated from the rest
of the people at the meeting in the vast meeting room of Plumbers Hall,
being relegated to a balcony, which was often left unlighted.
Since the new leadership
was elected, “visitors” (by which we mean dues paying union
members who are not delegates) no longer sit in the dark balcony, on odd-ball
chairs which may or may not have been set up, and with a problematic elevator
and entrance situation. The visitors’ section is now on the main
floor, left as you enter the hall. To get a visitor’s badge, all
you need to do is present your union card or a check stub showing union
dues deduction and sign in. There is a table set up for this purpose in
the far left of the lobby as you first walk in. You then proceed up the
stairs immediately by the table to the union hall.
One last note on the
“democracy” the UPC longs for. For more than a year, the UPC
ordered the district supervisors (those who hand out the delegates’
packets at the sign-in tables) to refuse to provide a packet to Substance
Editor George Schmidt. Schmidt had been a dues paying union member since
1969 (except when he was working outside the school system from 1971 to
1974). Once Paul Vallas sued and fired Schmidt, the UPC followed Vallas
and refused to allow him to continue paying union dues while all the complex
legal issues surrounding the cases were decided. [There is more about
all that elsewhere in this issue of Substance]. One year ago, the union
had extra guards placed on the stairs at union meetings with one job:
to prevent Schmidt from going upstairs and into the meetings of the union
where he had served as a school delegate, executive board member, and
in various other positions for three decades. When the UPC talks about
democracy in 2002, they have a major blindspot regarding their own behavior
for decades, and most recently in 1999, 2000, and 2001. Within two months
after her election, Deborah Lynch accepted the union dues from George
Schmidt, and he is now allowed to go to the meetings of the union he has
spent more than 30 years within.
When the UPC talks
about “democracy,” let’s never forget its own record. None
of the UPC members who now leaflet the delegates each month stood up for
democracy in the past, but they are being allowed their say in the present.
If you are a retiree
and have not kept up your union membership, I would urge you to renew
your membership now. The cost of dues per year is a mere $24 for all retirees.
Then you can come to the delegates meetings as a visitor. Also you can
come to the union retiree meetings which are coordinated by Jacqueline
Mooney, and are conducted at the union offices at the Merchandise Mart
every month of the school year except for January and February because
of weather concerns. The December and June meetings are festive luncheons,
usually held at hotels.
Other perks are $5
discounts for the luncheons if you are a member, and even more importantly
membership in the AFT United Buying Service and eligibility for all the
other AFT discounts, for example, for transportation, vacations, and dental
plans. Trips are arranged by the CTU retiree chapter two or three times
a year. The next trip is to St. Louis by train on Memorial Day weekend,
going to the Casino Queen, three days, two nights, all-inclusive for $139.
The next retiree meeting
is March 13 at 10:30 a.m. in the CTU Executive Board Room on the fourth
floor (Suite 400). The topic will be “Smart Women Finish Rich.”
The meetings generally present a variety of informational seminars on
financial/investment, health, travel, and political issues. There will
be a travelogue on “Canada and the Atlantic Coast” after this
meeting. The trip is being planned for September 26, 2002. Coffee, tea,
soda, and rolls are provided for the meetings, as well as parking discount
stickers, so that you end up paying about $7. The parking validation is
for the parking lot at the Holiday Inn Mart Plaza/Apparel Center at Kinzie
and Orleans Streets. The parking discount may not always be in effect,
so a call to the union may be in order. Connie Wimmer in the financial
office was very helpful to me. Call her through the union number (312)
329-9100 or call Barbara Filas (312) 329-6215.
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