By Michael Brownstein

April 2006 was my first Chicago Teacher’s Union meeting as a delegate and I didn’t even know where to go. The previous union delegate couldn’t remember the address, so I got the phone number and called the union.

“Hi,” I said, “I’m a new union delegate and I need the address for tonight’s union meeting.”

“Hold on,” she said. “I’ll get it.”

A few hours later I exited the Madison Ave. bus at the 1300 block and walked north to Washington. 1314 W. Washington is a parking lot, but down the street at 1340 I saw people gathering in small groups and walking in. I went there.

Inside I found my place in line and waited for my turn. I was handed a packet, thanked for showing up and signed in.

“This is my first meeting,” I told the woman on the other side of the table.

“Oh,” she replied, and handed me some more stuff. She then directed me to where the meeting would take place.

The meeting was on the second floor. I walked in, noticed a lot of empty seats near the front and decided to take one of them. My row was blocked by a line of people. I excused myself through them and took a seat. I thought I was late — I was told the meeting began promptly at 4 and here it was almost 4:30 — but I still had a few minutes before the meeting began.

It was question and answer time. That’s why there was such a long line. I organized my stuff, got comfortable, and waited for the main meeting. The question had to do with report card pick-up. Did we have to stay an extra 15 minutes or not? After discussion, back and forth bantering, the answer was yes, we had to stay in school until 6:15. I remember somehow a time when teaching was an avocation full of passion. An extra fifteen minutes? I didn’t understand the fuss. And I never will so don’t try to explain it to me.

At exactly 4:30, the union meeting began.

American Federation of Teachers Secretary-Treasurer Nat LaCour, the former president of the New Orleans affiliate, was the first speaker. He gave a rousing cheer leading speech, and I guess this is fine, but I thought to myself we don’t really need cheer leading at this point. There are too many problems confronting us and we as delegates should know why we’re there. To be told that we are one of the greatest unions of all time isn’t one of them.

Twenty minutes later CTU President Marilyn Stewart took the podium and gave a report on the violence in the high schools. I didn’t know about the feces in the fight at Kennedy, though I did know about the violence.

I was glad to get information on the difference between the assault and incident report. I was also glad to get my own views confirmed: Most of the violence, according to Stewart, is coming from students transferred in from a school that was closed nearby.

When Woodson closed part of its building, and my school became a receiving school, we too felt the brunt of this violence.

The meeting then went into a discussion about the new contract proposals. We were told we would have fifteen minutes to debate each page and if we kept on track, we would be out on time. I didn’t understand the fifteen minutes. It seemed like an arbitrary number, but I understand from reading my entire packet that fifteen minutes is the agreed upon time limit. Who made the time limit, I don’t know, but it’s in the Procedure For House of Delegate Meeting handout.

We went page by page. There was quite a bit about high school and a lot of it was redundant, but we made it through those pages even though some of the deletions had to be repeated again and again and again.

I noticed that some votes were passed only because a few people were very loud. (Votes were counted by which side was the loudest.)

On page three, representatives for the teacher aides stood in line to have their say only to be stopped by someone going to the mic to make a motion to stop the debate well before the fifteen minute time limit. When one of the teacher aides made an impassioned appeal to be heard, she was told she could not speak because a motion was made to end the debate.

The vote was very close, but I felt very strongly that they should have had been able to state their piece. Furthermore, I felt a hand vote would have been a better way of handling the situation. The voice vote was that close. Keep in mind the small group of very loud screamers.

One teacher aide stated that all of the their concerns were on page three, but they were not allowed to speak on them. Because the motion to stop debate had passed, they were told they could not speak to that issue.

I learned a few things during my first meeting

1.) I did not know art, music, library, and physical education teachers were not considered classroom teachers. If they weren’t classroom teachers, who were they? Article 4-8 of the contract proposals states that with the new proposed contract they “...shall be considered as classroom teachers...” What were they considered before?

2.) High School teachers get five preparation periods per week.

3.) Counselors presently have a caseload of 500 to 1. No wonder we are seeing so many problems.

4.) As important as the library is, the board presently funds one librarian for schools with 500 or more students. I thought reading was our number one priority.

5.) Teachers were taken out of the loop in cases of discipline. This was reinstated in the proposed contract in Article 30-1. The proposal now reads that teachers can participate in the disciplinary conference with the administration, student and parent.

6.) Many members do not understand what immediate family means in terms of benefits. Your mother is not your spouse or child. There was also some movement towards gay bashing—benefits that assist individuals who do not conform to the standard family unit.

7.) Many times the fifteen minute rule was halted by a motion to stop debate and a contingency of very loud individuals would scream out thereby passing the motion.

8.) Not all of the individuals on the podium have a full understanding of the Robert’s Rules of Order.

9.) Substitutes and teacher aides do not have clout—even within their own union.

Two hours later, someone called out for a quorum count. There was a lot of discussion on the podium, a ruling to disregard, then another ruling, and finally it was decided to have a quorum vote. We stood to be counted. Only 226 delegates were still present so the meeting was adjourned.

What did I learn? We don’t need cheerleaders to get us motivated. We also don’t need to stop specific voices from talking. At one point a motion was made but not seconded. Someone in the back finally yelled out, “Every motion deserves a second.”

Back at school the next day, I put together my own union report. Did I learn anything else? I learned that if we are going to successfully go against the Board, we’d better get united in a big way quickly. And we don’t need cheerleaders to unite us. We need solid leadership. The kind offered in the President’s Report.