April 2005 CTU House of Delegates meeting 

By Theresa D. Daniels

The April, 2005, House of Delegates Meeting saw the return of President Marilyn Stewart after her absence at the previous meeting and at the Board of Education hearings regarding the closings of four schools, as well as other union and community events.

Back too was the official question period, though still placed near the end of the meeting on the agenda rather than its traditional spot after the President’s Report, so that it could be canceled out easily by the union leadership caucus cohort.

The UPC (United Progressive Caucus) leadership-appointed Sergeants-at-Arms could be seen on orders walking up and down the aisles counting heads during the last officer’s report in an obvious look-see as to whether a successful quorum call could be made to cancel the rest of the meeting so that the question period would not take place, but apparently delegates had stayed and there was a quorum (one-third of the approximately 800 delegates still there).

This time the question period took place, and while delegates were finally able to ask for information on pressing issues, none of the motions that the union leadership was afraid of were made.

At the last two House meetings, the official question periods (where delegates could make motions to conduct the business of the House, as well as ask questions) were canceled because of UPC calls for quorum or adjournment. “Unofficial” minutes still a joke

For Recording Secretary Mary McGuire to just duplicate the agenda of the previous meeting and present it as the unofficial minutes of that meeting at the following meeting can only be the act of a leadership that feels it does not have to answer at all to its membership. To do this meeting after meeting is woefully arrogant and scornful of the House of Delegates, where members have tried to correct the minutes when McGuire asks, “Are there any corrections?” and have been told they are out of order when they give their corrections.

For example, in the January meeting packet, the unofficial minutes for the December meeting made no mention of a motion made by Devon Morales (South Shore High School) that any contracts of over $100,000 would be approved by the House. His motion passed 295 to 98 after the leadership tried to keep the vote from happening, yet no mention was made of it in the minutes. When delegates tried to correct the error, Larry Poltrock, the attorney hired by the UPC leadership as union attorney (also working for the AFT) at one point even tried to say that each meeting was a separate entity which could not be affected by anything done at another meeting [???]. While delegates tried in January and again in February, the UPC entered nothing as a correction.

Larry Poltrock has not been on stage as parliamentarian for the last two meetings. His daughter, Attorney Jennifer Poltrock, has taken his place, and I saw him sitting in the floor of the House for the April meeting.

There was no March meeting, though one could have been held during the Delegates Workshop as has been done other years.

For this April meeting, the unofficial minutes for the previous meeting in February were a repeat of that meeting’s agenda without any reference to a motion made by Tony Gudwien, Delegate from Kelwyn Park High School, for a rally regarding Renaissance 2010. The motion was to be “referred to committee” which means that it would be presented at a future House meeting with the recommendation of that committee as to whether the motion should be voted up or down. It will be interesting to see if it will be presented at the May meeting.

There was no mention of the motion, not in the minutes, nor on the agenda, just as there had not been any mention of Devon Morales’ motion. This might be called rewriting history, as in history being written by those in power.

Can we ever see the officer and staff contracts?

Delegate George Milkowski of Hyde Park High School asked during the pre-meeting unofficial 4:00 p.m. question period (where the majority of the delegates still have not arrived to hear the questions and get this information) when members could come and view the officer and staff contracts.

Vice President Ted Dallas repeated his usual variation on “Any time.” His answer once upon a time was “Members can come down to the offices and ask to see the contracts any time” (at the February post-meeting unofficial question period). That statement turned into “Call and make an appointment to see them any time,” which is the way it was traditionally done. This later became “Send the union a letter requesting to see the contracts.”

This time when Dallas answered Milkowski’s question by saying, “Send the union a letter requesting to see the contracts,” I stepped in with a point of information. Lou Pyster, former delegate and union director, I said, had sent four letters making this request and finally received a letter signed by Dallas saying that there was no need for him to see the contracts because they were published in the Union Teacher newspaper [where the extra perks like car allowances, expense money, additional salary through union-paid annuities, far better health plan than that negotiated for members, et al. were not spelled out] and he said published in the budget as well, the budget which the House sees and approves [even less spelled out there, not even salaries].

Three delegates, one of them Ray Wohl, delegate from Irving Park Middle School, when I asked, said in the meeting that they had received letters in response to their written requests to see the contracts telling them to call for appointments.

Pyster was told after the meeting that he too could call Nick Cannella, an assistant to President Stewart, in order to make an appointment. I have since learned that Pyster was offered one date which he had to turn down because he was going to be out of town and that he would be able to get another date after his return.

Always special speakers off of the agenda

Of late, meetings begin with a speaker off-agenda. This month one speaker was IFT Legislative Director Steve Preckwingle who discussed a number of legislative bills, emphasizing SB/HB 750 which would make the state government do its fair share of funding elementary and secondary school costs by paying 51% of the costs instead of the 38% it paid in 2004. Local property taxpayers paid 53% then, while the rest of the funding was provided by the federal government. This bill would give relief to property owners, and over 90% of Illinois school districts would see a net funding increase, according to Preckwingle.

President Stewart then introduced John Ostenberg, editor of the Union Teacher, and led into his presentation by saying that downstate teachers had 5 plus 5. Ostenberg said that regarding 5 plus 5, he had participated in the joint commission January, 2004, on contract provision 12-1. He said there was no agreement reached between the Board and the Union except to increase funding for the medical insurance of retirees. He said April 1, 2004, had been the deadline for any agreement to be reached.

He said that it was the former Lynch leadership of the union who had gone for a pension enhancement plan in the contract rather than fighting for 5 plus 5.

I rose to a microphone to say in a point of information that it was the Stewart administration that had dropped the grievance initiated by the Lynch team against the Board for reneging on the promise to support 5 plus 5 in the legislature. I said the Stewart administration had taken the Board position in dropping the grievance and had thus hurt 8,000 teachers who could have benefited.

Later during the official question period, Lois Jones, delegate from Schurz High School, came to a mike to read the letter from the Board’s attorney to the Lynch administration, stating the Board’s agreement on this issue. Jones was ruled out of order. Stewart also told her to note the “or” in the letter that wasn’t allowed to be read. Parroting the Board position, the Stewart team maintains that the Board’s agreement to support 5 plus 5 is negated by the “or” qualifier in the sentence in the letter which reads that they will support the 5 plus 5 initiative OR any other plan agreed upon.

Former Union Recording Secretary Jacqueline Ward, now a newly elected delegate from Marquette School, tried to address the issue from a mike and was also illegally ruled out of order.

Later Delegate Lee White of Chicago Vocational rose to make a point of information and was ruled out of order.

In other words, Marilyn Stewart was summarily throwing out of the window the parliamentary procedures of Roberts Rules of Order which had been practiced at these union meetings for decades.

For decades, as presentations were made during a House meeting, delegates were able to rise to the microphones afterwards to ask questions and to make comments or motions if applicable. Points of order and points of information are always in order according to the rules.

Yet now there is no participation, debate, or democracy allowed. The delegates must accept unquestioningly what they are told from the stage. The Stewart team began campaigning for re-election as soon as they came into power and the “information” presented at meetings is often indistinguishable from campaign propaganda. The attacks on the former union administration of Debbie Lynch are not even thinly veiled.

I heard prophetic words from the wise-meister Detective Munsch on Law and Order SUV: “An all-consuming obsession to destroy your political competition is no different than the compulsion to harm your fellow man.” The hope is that the union is not destroyed in the process.

Partisan Lobby Day shut out of retiree delegates and a slap (again) to all retirees

I said at this meeting that no outreach toward retirees or organization of retirees had been made in regard to Lobby Day on April 13th, that this group in the union was a natural for lobby work, and that provisions should be made for retiree participation. I was told that calls were being made to retirees to invite them and explain the options for transportation.

Neither I, nor any retiree delegate of my acquaintance, aside from Faye Williams, wife of the former Financial Secretary Michael Williams who served in the Tom Reece administration, received a call. Faye must have been called because she told me that she went to Lobby Day.

Besides retiree delegates being excluded from the Delegates Workshop in March and then Lobby Day in April, retirees have had their newsletter discontinued, their spring luncheon place changed from the favored Westin Hotel to the Merchandise Mart Holiday Inn with whom the union has signed a contract to have all union events, and the luncheon date arbitrarily set by the union coordinator Nick Cannella. The nominating meeting to fill three vacancies for retiree delegate positions (due to a growth in the number of members) has suffered an attempted sabotage.

The retiree newsletter lives!

I spoke to Financial Secretary and union retiree liaison Mark Ochoa after the April meeting and asked him why the union was no longer publishing the retiree newsletter called Senior Advisor. I said I knew that the editor John Jasionowski had provided copy for it twice this school year.

Ochoa said that much of that information had been published in the Union Teacher and that the rest of it was outdated. I guessed that it did get outdated gathering dust in the union offices, unpublished, month after month.

Later breaking news, however, has it that in a meeting with Ochoa called by Retiree Functional Vice President Jackie Mooney, there has been an agreement made that the retiree newsletter will be published on one page of the Union Teacher four times a year. If there is additional news, letters will be mailed in between issues.

Vice President Mooney has also succeeded in getting a more desirable date at the end of June for the Retiree Spring Luncheon. In a coincidence that had never happened before, the luncheon date in May turned out to be the very one that RTAC had chosen, and it would be undesirable for two retiree organizations to compete with one another.

Only the retiree group can’t fill vacancies mid-term

Barbara Filas, union office coordinator, told Mooney that the union constitution prohibits the retiree unit from filling delegate vacancies mid-term, and that we would have to wait till our terms are over in January of 2006. Therefore, Filas said, the nominating meeting would be at the Holiday Luncheon before Christmas (whereas Ochoa had told me the Spring Luncheon and even that would be unsatisfactory).

In the meantime other union units like city-wide teachers as well as clerks have held nominating meetings in the last few months to fill their vacancies mid-term, and there is nothing in the constitution to prohibit any unit from doing so. The last time vacancies were filled for the retiree group was in early February of 2002 under the Lynch administration when Carolyn Delgado (R.I.P.), Monroe Morgan, and Rose Meyers were elected. It was non-partisan as it was an election of two who were in the UPC and one independent, whereas the present Stewart administration is about shutting out and shutting down all opposition.

It is hoped that Mooney can reverse this attempt to keep the retirees from having as many delegates as they are entitled to for seven whole months of delegate meetings and retiree meetings in a meeting I understand she’s called for with union officers and the AFT Retiree Officer. It is hoped too that the nominating meeting is not held at a formal luncheon thereby mixing business with pleasure, as Jackie Mooney has said. There needs to be a separate nominating meeting, as at one of the monthly retiree meetings, to conduct this business.

Other House of Delegates Meeting events

City-wide Nurse Delegate Helen Ramirez, chair of the CTU Women’s Rights Committee presented Molly Myers, social studies teacher at Gwendolyn Brooks High School with the Dr. Margaret T. Burroughs Award. Myers said that it was rare to be recognized in our jobs.

Roberta Wilson was presented with the Support Personnel Certificate of Recognition. Wilson had been a teachers aide at Schubert School, had organized clothing drives in Austin, had worked on the scholarship committee, and had been inducted into the Chicago Senior Citizen Hall of Fame in 2004. She said regarding her award that “ESP’s are not left behind.”

In the President’s Report, Stewart touched upon the Delegates Workshop and how important it is to be a dues-paying union member; monthly visits to various schools by her team, as permitted by an article in the contract; the pensionability settlement where the union’s demand is $39 million and a heavy date for strategic bargaining on the issue is coming up in mid-September; the strategic bargaining session only on job security; the grievances won, as for the improper firing of FTB’s ten years ago, winning $280,000 and $265,000; HB 157 allowing members hired prior to 1986 to purchase Medicare coverage passing in the House of Representatives and now going on to the Senate; and her slogan of “Every Dollar for the Classroom” in the fight for the better funding of schools. She said Illinois is last in education funding. Some say that at one point she said, “Chicago is the 49th state in education funding.” Regarding Lobby Day, Stewart said the nurses wore white at the legislative breakfast some weeks ago; on another rallying occasion the prison guards wore their uniforms and guns; and we teachers were going to make everyone see red because we were bleeding.

Two delegates from Haugan School scheduled for closing spoke eloquently about how the community, the parents, students, and teachers lost out. Mayor Daley was turning over the new building they had waited a year for to a group named Aspira, the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades would be moving, and eighteen teachers were losing their positions.

They said it was no consolation that the Board said that no teachers were losing their jobs and that they could have positions at the charter school. They emphasized that this could happen to anyone. They had been designated a “Rising Star School,” and it had happened to them. The Haugan School delegates concluded by saying, “Be aware and feel sorry for us.”

The three Items for Action on the agenda were quickly moved and passed: approving support of teachers/staff at schools scheduled for closing; approving the Reform for School Funding Campaign and its slogan; and approving Lobby Day. They were no-brainers for what the union should be doing.

There was discussion how ten buses were not enough for Lobby Day. It was at this point that Stewart said to me that the retirees were being called regarding Lobby Day. Lisa Levy, delegate from Currie High School, tried to ask for some organized direction for where exactly to go when you go to talk to the lobbyists, and she was ruled out of order. The other officers gave their reports, Ochoa talking about the class size issue. I’m astounded that in April, with only two more months of the school year to go, the progress chart shows that six classrooms still don’t have their class-size leveling completed.

The question periods

The official 15-minute Question and Answer Period dealt with the same issues brought up in the unofficial Question Period at 4:00 before the meeting began, with far more ground covered in the unofficial period. Issues brought up in both meetings and information gleaned are the following:

Tim O’Connell, delegate for substitute teachers, raised many issues: Principals publishing vacancies only after they are filled; problems with cadre subs getting their sick days; the need for the union to hold special focus meetings for subs.

When the question about there being no Teachers Appreciation Day was raised, Stewart said there were no excess days, while delegates muttered that there are always snow days that can be played with.

A delegate asked if there were any teachers ever relieved of their jobs due to the residency requirement. Stewart said, “All of the time.” Gail Koffman, grievance coordinator, added that teachers are called to investigative hearings and given a time limit to move back into the city. If they don’t, she said, they are released.

The sex harassment on-line course and test was much discussed, with delegates being concerned that teachers were not being given any designated time to do this assignment. Stewart said that the half-day in-service days on April 11th and May 5th could be used to give teachers and others time, as well as the professional development day on April 15th. She said you didn’t need to take the course, but just had to do the test. Just press the box in the corner to skip the test, she said. Helen Ramirez, chair of the Women’s Rights Committee, later added that it was never the intention to have teachers spend their own time on this.

There was a complaint that information on orange paper wouldn’t copy. Stewart said you could also get that info on the website.

A question was raised about new procedures the Board was using for discipline actions toward teachers, with teachers not given due process, not contacted, and not given the opportunity to appear for a hearing. Koffman said the person should contact the union.

Another delegate asked about the class action grievance regarding principals arbitrarily setting a school starting time. Koffman said the grievance had gone to arbitration.

A problem with a special education classroom having seventeen students and no full-time aide was brought up. Stewart said that was in violation of state law and a grievance should be sent in.

In answer to another question, Stewart said that the grievance about elementary school coaches receiving less pay than high school coaches had been won.

Teacher certificates were up for renewal June 30, but teachers could only pay after June 30. Why? Koffman said because then the state would count it as paid for this year, not the next.

A security grievance had taken too long, with the child throwing things and the teacher pregnant. Now there were only a few weeks left before the teacher went into delivery. The field representative said that the problem was that the child was not special ed, and that the teacher had said that the child had never thrown anything at her. Stewart said such a grievance needs to be fast-tracked.

A question was asked about a nominating meeting for a vacancy for executive board functional vice president. Stewart said nominations would be at the May meeting and the election would be held at the June meeting of the House of Delegates.

A complaint was made that spring vacation was set up to miss Good Friday as a holiday.

A complaint was made about a principal who goes on a rampage and calls teachers out in front of students. Stewart said to contact the union or call the police if he gets physical.

A city-wide delegate said the city-wide grievance about 48-week work status was settled without talking to the grievants. She said to me later that Mildred Haggerty, the attorney for former union president Debbie Lynch, had said all the grievants had a case, not just the ones hired prior to 1976 (which would only cover a third of the people), as the UPC leadership and attorneys now claim.

She said that the psychologists, social workers, and nurses evaluated 3,000 students during the summer months in the assessment centers, a workload that would fall on the regular teams who are already overburdened during the work year if the 48-weekers were terminated. The present attorney Jennifer Poltrock said that the union had made an attempt to give protection to those it could. The language is not yet finalized, she said, and the case is continued pending settlement.

One delegate asked that we adhere to our rules—one question only per speaker. When next she tried to ask another question, she was told that that had already been one question and the rule was imposed on her.

The answer to the next question was that yes, you had to allow the AIO to visit your classroom for forty minutes if the principal told you to do it.

Bernie Eshoo of Lincoln Park High School was shut down by President Stewart when she tried to complain about officers coming to her school to meet with teachers without notifying any of the delegates or the principal. Stewart said that the officers signing in was notification to the principal.

Lisa Levy of Curie High School came back during the official question period to say that she wasn’t going to be silenced by having her mike taken away and that they should know she was going to say her piece. She said she went to all the demonstrations, and where it was understandable that they would start small and get bigger, she just sees ours diminishing instead. She said she was shocked that the big dramatic teachers union could only bring ten buses to Lobby Day. Levy said she still wanted to see more direction given to those going to Springfield. She said that last time she spent time lost and not knowing who to talk to and where to go.

Lee White of Chicago Vocational High School questioned the fact that the budget had not been presented to the union executive board in April as required by the constitution. She was told that it would be presented at the end of April so as to be within the guideline of the constitution, at a meeting that would actually be the May meeting of the executive board.

A motion to extend the question period failed, six committee reports were given, and the meeting was adjourned at approximately 6:30 p.m. Seemingly the delegates were so hungry for a meeting to go full length and not be cut off by a call for a quorum or an untimely call for adjournment, that the majority even stayed for the committee reports.