By Theresa D. Daniels

    The CTU (Chicago Teachers Union) House of Delegates met at Plumbers Hall, 1340 W. Washington Blvd., on April 11, 2007.

    While the official meeting began as usual at 4:30 p.m., the pre-meeting 4:00 p.m. question and comment period that was conducted before the convening of the regular meeting yielded on this date some explosive information.

CTU turns its back on labor movement in aldermanic run-off elections

    Lou Pyster, retiree delegate and former CTU research director, stated in his comment made during the 4:00 p.m. question period that last meeting he had raised the issue of the mayoral non-endorsement by the CTU and now he was dealing with no CTU endorsement even for the aldermanic run-off elections of April 17th.

 “Our brothers and sisters in other unions are spending money and energy for and against candidates,” Pyster said, with regard to support for labor on the Big-Box Ordinance issue. He said that in terms of labor solidarity, it was important to have wins in these battles and that organized labor was going to look bad if we lost big time.

“What has the CTU done about these elections?” he asked.

    Vice President Ted Dallas, who was coordinating the question period, called on Lobbyist and former CTU Recording Secretary Pam Massarsky to answer Pyster’s question.

“We’ve done absolutely nothing,” Massarsky, emphatically and with deliberate emphasis on each word, said, in loud and proud stentorian tones.

“We have stayed out of it as we said we would,” Massarsky explained. She went on to say that the CTU didn’t have enough members contributing to the CTU/PAC (Political Action Committee) to get into every election. She claimed that the union had done nothing about aldermanic elections during her 40-year tenure with the CTU. She said that the members could follow the endorsements of the CFL (Chicago Federation of Labor) if they wished to do so.

    Pyster rebutted by saying that just in the previous meeting CTU literature on various candidates had been passed out. He was cut off by Vice President Ted Dallas who told him that he had had his one question and was no longer entitled to speak.

    Sitting behind me, Allegra Padrovsky, delegate from Kelvyn Park High School, said to me, “How much would it have cost for the CTU to come up with endorsements and publish them in the monthly union newspaper?”

“Such transparent hypocrisy,” I answered, wondering if this was yet another signpost of a possibly on-going and ever more heavily transpiring sell-out to the mayor.

If so: “Teachers, then hold on to your pensions,” I thought, because maybe another pension give-away to the mayor is again just around the corner. This had been done by President Marilyn Stewart’s UPC (United Progressive Caucus) predecessors over a decade ago. At that time, it was the trade-off for the school employees’ paltry raise, and the pension fund never got the money back.

[The unions scored significant successes in the run-off aldermanic elections, as well as in the earlier elections, changing the make-up of the city council to the extent that perhaps it will no longer be a rubber stamp for the mayor. The victory was achieved without the help of the CTU, and although many CTU members hoped that our brother and sister unions don’t hold it against us, within two weeks after Massarsky’s snub of the other unions it was becoming clear that CTU was more and more isolated from the rest of the unions in Chicago, including those representing other workers at the Chicago Public Schools].

Vice President Dallas repeats the excuse for doing nothing

    Telling Lou Pyster he had already had his one question, Vice President Ted Dallas reiterated the transparent excuse Pam Massarsky had given for the CTU turning its back on the labor initiative for a living wage from Walmart that the run-off elections represented.

    Dallas said, “One in four members, only 25 percent, contribute to the PAC.” He said more money was needed to get into the different types of elections.

    It was apparent to many delegates that our union chiefs have their priorities regarding the spending of union monies, priorities that deal with secret perks for self-enrichment that they refuse to spell out to the members. Also, just as many delegates feel that you have to make nice and show support for those in power who can maybe do you some good and therefore support our present union chiefs, so too our union chiefs are choosing who to make nice to in the battle between the mayor and certain unions.

Question period gains in importance

    This pre-meeting question period has become all-important since the Stewart administration has placed the official 15-minute question period so ridiculously far back on the agenda of the regular meeting. As a result, calls for adjournment from Stewart’s supporters meet with too frequent success from tired delegates and the claque who—for whatever reason— support the administration blindly. The only time for questions is at 4:00, even though many delegates arrive at the meetings long after that because of their duties in their schools and classrooms.

    “The [official 15-minute] question period is sacred…sacred. Delegates are only given 15 minutes to ask questions, comment, or make motions,” Retiree Delegate Marybeth Foley said, shaking her head sadly, when the official question period was cancelled again this meeting by a call for adjournment by Diane Blaszczyk, delegate from Onahan School, who frequently makes the calls for adjournment.

Blaszczyk was recently appointed to a part-time job as class-size referral coordinator for the Union.

    “Shame on you, Diane Blaszczyk!” it was called to her. “Again you’re moving to adjourn the meeting and canceling out the question period which is the only time delegates are free to bring up issues or make motions to the House. Shame!”
Only two speakers had had the opportunity to speak at the microphones before Blaszczyk made her motion to adjourn the meeting.

The first speaker asked a question about seniority in regard to layoffs. President Stewart quoted chapter and verse regarding Article 9-6.18 of the contract which honored seniority rights for ESPs (Educational Support Personnel). The contract did not have the same protection for PATs (Probationary Assigned Teachers), she said.

The second speaker, Lou Pyster, made the motion that the delegates should receive at the next meeting [at which the CTU budget will be introduced] copies of the contracts of the CTU officers and staff, contracts which would include their salaries and benefits. [Even though promising to show these to union members who came to the union offices, the Union chiefs have never honored their promise and have repeatedly refused to show contracts which spelled out their vast benefits and perks.] The motion was referred to committee. The meeting was then adjourned at approximately 6:30 p.m.

Other information gleaned at the pre-meeting question period

    Vice President Ted Dallas conducted the pre-meeting question period and was congratulated for the Union’s victory in getting the Board to replace the Gillespie School principal.

    As retiree delegate, I asked Dallas what measures the Board would put into place regarding the three security snafus which exposed many members to identity theft, and what had the Union insisted the Board do after the first one which occurred in November of 2006. I said that surely in “strategic bargaining sessions” with the Board, not to be confused — as frequently was the case — with contract negotiations, the Union had addressed this problem from the time of the first of the three snafus.

    Dallas said they had been working on the problem with the Board, but that we had seen how long the problem at Gillespie School had taken. He said, “Marilyn [Stewart] is in touch with Arne [Duncan] every day.”

    Dallas added that the Union had “flipped from strategic bargaining to formal
bargaining.”

    Formal bargaining means contract negotiations, but I had already had my one question and couldn’t ask for confirmation. It surprised me though, because Vice President Dallas had told at least one group of teachers at the city-wide Union pizza parties that formal negotiations wouldn’t begin until after the union elections on May 18th.

[Some delegates said these parties seemed more about campaigning than the Union informational outreach they were supposed to be. The CTU officers asked for members’ votes, circulated campaign petitions, and made campaign buttons available on a table. Union dues should not be used to pay for campaigning events and PACT (Pro-Active Chicago Teachers and School Employees), the caucus of former President Debbie Lynch, has filed a challenge.]

    Another delegate voiced the complaint of many teachers about the appalling lack of discipline in the face of the increasing violence in the schools, saying that teachers were being disciplined by principals, but not so with students. She said that teachers would be escorted out if they did the same as the students.

[The response that the Union’s working on it left me thinking about how Marilyn Stewart and company disbanded the Lynch administration’s very aggressive Safety and Security Committee chaired by Substance editor George Schmidt, and has left their appointed coordinator Rick Perrotte to mostly chase down health hazards like leaks and debris (see page 17 of the April, 2007 issue of the Union newspaper).]
    The Board now pays employees on leave from the downtown office with problems abounding, a delegate reported.

    Teachers can’t access the IMPACT program from home to put their grades in, though the Board claims it’s possible, a delegate said. Consultant Gail Koffman said that the Union will meet on April 18th with the Board regarding making technology benefit teachers rather than creating more work for them. Koffman’s answer struck many observers as another example of how out of touch the union’s leaders are. April 18 was the date of Elementary Report Card Pickup (high schools were April 19). Any problem with entering grades by computer had to be solved before April 18! Koffman said the Board has said that by next year progress reports will be produced for teachers.

    Probationary teachers must be notified if their position at the school will not be renewed for next year by April 14 per an agreement made by the Board and the Union. Dallas said the Union will expect the Board to live up to this agreement despite a contradictory new directive to principals that one delegate reported. The directive was said to give principals till May “something” to notify the teacher. Dallas said he had also heard of the new date and said one Board individual whom he would not name had an especially hard time with deadlines. [The notifications were distributed and reported in the media on April 27 and April 28].

To another delegate’s question, he said that only written notification can displace a PAT. Just a meeting with the principal cannot be official notification.

    A delegate from Lincoln Park High School, where the principal had cut the position of the celebrated librarian and Union delegate, Bernie Eshoo, was told by Gail Koffman that the case had gone to arbitration and that the arbitrator would set the date for the hearing which would probably take place in July.

Cutting Eshoo’s position left the school of 2,300 students with only one librarian, in a school population that requires two, the delegate said. Koffman also said a separate grievance would have to be filed for the delegate’s complaint that a dean of students who was not a certified librarian was covering during the librarian’s 6th period lunch.
Regarding the delegate’s complaint that the students weren’t getting the services of a librarian that period, which seems to me like an important point to make in a grievance to the Board, Koffman said, in what to me was a mystifying non sequitur, “We don’t represent the kids.” [A grievance can always be filed, however, when a principal violates a Board Policy or Practice, which is clearly what is happening at Lincoln Park High School. Koffman has ignored that possibility.]

A delegate questioned Dallas about the rumors floating around that there would be a one-year extension of the current contract and that the discretionary budget allowed for a 2.5 percent raise for discretionary fund teachers. While Delegate Veronica Rieck kept calling out, “Only one question!” Dallas said he had not heard of those rumors.
A delegate complained that ESPs were being assigned to hold stop signs for traffic in the street and on the sidewalk instead of being on the playground where they should be. Field Rep for ESPs, June Davis, said there was nothing she could do unless someone signed a grievance. She said the principal should call the watch commander in the meantime.

[In this report, I can no longer name the delegates whom I do not know as it’s hard to catch the full names and/or schools or to check a quote now that the present Union leadership has refused (without a vote of the House of Delegates) to publish the traditional delegates’ handbook which for over thirty years had the names, schools, and phone numbers listed for all the delegates who did not choose to opt out of the listing.]

The CPS (Chicago Public Schools) repeated security problem
Such was the excitement about the third CPS security snafu in less than six months that, at the conclusion of the pre-meeting question period, President Stewart forgot to officially call the meeting to order. She also forgot to ask the delegates for the names of educational personnel who had recently passed, her request for this roll call occurring an hour later. Stewart said she would suspend her regular report and put it on the website.

As many delegates expected, Stewart gave a detailed timeline of how long it took for the Union to be notified of the two laptops stolen on April 7th at Board headquarters, how long it took for her to find out that she was one of the 40,000 affected by having her address and social security number exposed to fraud, and how long it took Arne [Duncan] to call her even though he has her cell phone number (almost 12 hours for the last).

Stewart said the mayor never returned her calls even though he is very vocal about teachers abusing sick days, fired principals, and failing schools. Teachers can no longer put a child’s paper up on a bulletin board for fear of violating his/her privacy, yet the mayor has nothing to say when a cop beats up a woman or about such security gaffes at the Board, she said. She said that we too wanted action and accountability.

The first security lapse had occurred in November, 2006, Stewart said, and affected 1,740 people who were sent each other’s addresses and social security numbers. She said we have to remember that some of their relatives could have criminal backgrounds even if educational personnel had no such intentions. The second fiasco of the Board occurred when the W2 forms were sent out to the wrong schools in many cases, in unsealed envelopes, and with copies missing or lost in entirety. She said our social security numbers were safer in the old days when they were in locked file cabinets.

President Stewart then turned over the meeting to a security expert named Dan Yost who spoke and answered questions for close to an hour. While he was knowledgeable and informative, many delegates found this to be yet another way for Stewart and company to run out the clock on a meeting where they seemingly fear  participation by the delegates and want to keep the meetings in a tight hold of their own.

Yost said that affected members need to call the major credit bureaus to place an initial fraud alert on the accounts. One call to a major credit bureau will propagate alerts with the other two, but there’s nothing wrong with calling all three, he said. You don’t have to cancel credit cards or accounts if you haven’t seen fraudulent activity, and you should carefully monitor your mail because irregularities like not receiving the usual bills could indicate that someone’s been changing your billing address. These and other major points can be found on a leaflet in the delegates’ packet that delegates can place on the union bulletin boards or duplicate for members.

The delegates’ packet also had a leaflet with the salient points of the Union plan for what the CPS needs to do. It says that CPS should establish an identity theft unit; the Board should stop using social security numbers; and, all computers with sensitive data should be encrypted, as one of the stolen laptops was not.

Sparks fly again during the Agenda Items for Action

    Items A. and B. were motions endorsed for House of Delegates’ approval and made by the CTU Executive Board in order to certify the reports on the status of eligibility of candidates running in the May 18, 2007 officers’ election and candidates running for delegate and alternate delegate to the 2008 American Federation of Teachers convention. Both motions were approved by voice vote.

    Among other problems in these reports, I was aware that one PACT candidate had been disqualified because the Board had failed to take Union dues out of one check, and it seemed so unfair to blame the employee when it’s so hard to catch all of the many errors committed by the Board. However, two UPC candidates had also found themselves in the same bind and were disqualified for this reason, and this perhaps aided in a common-sense and speedy resolution. The candidates paid the missing dues and were reinstated.

“Pam, for once tell the truth,” turned Pam into a potty mouth
It was Item C. “Recommend that the candidates for the office of president be allotted five (5) minutes each for campaign speeches at the beginning of the May House meeting” that caused a ruckus.

I was at Mike One and said, “I’m just aghast at all the traditions that this Union leadership is breaking. For example, no longer can we have a delegates’ handbook that we’ve had for thirty years. What are you afraid of? That the delegates will be able to communicate with one another?”

Gail Koffman called out that I wasn’t speaking to the question. I said, Yes, I was speaking to the item for action.

I said, “To give a candidate for the most important office in the Union, the office of Union president, only two minutes more than delegates can speak is unconscionable. Delegates can speak for three minutes, and now we’re going to break with tradition and the candidate for president is only going to have five minutes? What are you afraid of? That Debbie Lynch is going to expose your lies?” President Stewart said I was out of order.

Pam Massarsky, one of the “old” UPC officers under the late and former President Tom Reece and others, rose to say, “The speaker at Mike One [me] is saying something that is not true.” She said she had been in the House since 1969 and became recording secretary in 1985, and with all the agendas and minutes that she worked with she knew that the candidates for president had never had ten minutes to speak except for three years ago under former President Lynch and that they usually had even less than five minutes.

[Her statement was not only challenged verbally later in the meeting, but conflicted sharply with the memories of many delegates who remembered these speeches in a vastly different way. For example, I remember the late James McQuirter as candidate in 1978 giving a speech that went on for much, much longer than the ten minutes allotted, and then-President Robert Healy respectfully not calling time.]  

 
President Stewart then called on Mike Two. Lou Pyster was there and he moved to amend the motion before the House and change the five minutes allotted in the motion to the traditional ten minutes.

Then the parliamentary games began. Some partisan delegates and staff members, as well as some officers from the stage, were saying that there was no motion on the floor for him to amend. This said as if Item C. were not already a motion made by the CTU Executive Board, which it was, and which he could amend.

Some said all Pyster could do would be to move the motion to put it on the floor for discussion. Of course, I had already discussed it at Mike One. Some said he had already spoken to the motion by using the word “traditional” in his amendment of the motion, so that he could no longer amend the motion.

Pyster at the mike said they could try to stop his amendment to the motion, but that someone else would make the motion to amend anyway, so they should stop the parliamentary games and let his motion proceed.

Pam Massarsky got up to make a point of order saying that Pyster had made a motion and then tried to move an amendment of the motion. More uproar ensued.

Pyster said, “We can fight. I have been a member of this body since 1967 both in the House of Representatives and then the House of Delegates. When Healy was president, it was ten minutes, when Vaughn was president it was ten minutes, when Reece was president it was ten minutes, and when Lynch was president….”

He was cut off by Pam Massarsky calling out a denial of what he said.

Pyster’s rejoinder was “Pam, for once tell the truth.”

Massarsky tore at the mike taking it away from Pyster to make what she called a point of personal privilege because he had talked about her and named her.

Stewart, meanwhile, kept repeating that they should take their disagreement out to the street — until Massarsky said to Pyster, “I won’t stand here and have you call me god-damned names!”

President Stewart then truly made a glorious shout-out telling Pam Massarsky that she could take that street talk out to the street where it belonged, and other words to that effect. Massarsky sat down, furious but chastened.

Parliamentarian Barbara Hillman was called upon by Stewart to say how the meeting should proceed.

“This is not rocket science,” says Parliamentarian Barbara Hillman.

Parliamentarian Barbara Hillman said, “This is not rocket science. There was a motion to amend the original motion from five to ten minutes. That’s what we’ve been discussing. After that’s settled [the amendment voted up or down], we’ll go back to the original motion [to vote it either up or down].”

[I became an associate delegate in the House during the 1975 - 76 school year and have been a delegate except for my first two years of retirement in the year 2000, after which I again became a delegate after the retiree delegate elections of 2002, re-elected in 2005 — a total of about 30 years.

I give these credentials prior to saying that never had I seen such parliamentary shenanigans in the House until the “new” UPC led by Marilyn Stewart started disruptive behaviors in the House during the Lynch administration. I clearly remember Stewart and now-Treasurer Linda Porter in the red tee-shirts all the UPC members wore during one delegates’ meeting yelling at me and others as we tried to speak at the mikes. I became potty mouth on that occasion and was told by Lynch to sit down from the mike.
Nor have I ever seen such confusion at the meetings over Roberts Rules of Order as has been taking place during the tenure of President Stewart. Under former Presidents Bob Healy, Jacqueline Vaughn, and Tom Reece, we all felt that everyone was very clear on parliamentary procedure. The present administration seems to be reinventing the wheel. Parliamentarian Barbara Hillman is right: This is not rocket science. However, either it is too difficult for the present officers, or they are deliberately trying to confuse the issue as they were already beginning to do in Lynch’s time. It’s apparent that games are being played with parliamentary procedure.]

But, yes, it must be rocket science, Marilyn.

After the parliamentarian ruled, Pyster was almost skipped over as already having spoken to the amendment he had been able to make, but finally he was able to say that the traditional ten minutes would be appropriate and that Stewart had done a great job with her ten minutes in 2004.

However, strangely enough, Stewart then said that former CTU Treasurer Maureen Callaghan who had come from the ranks of career service and who was now standing at Mike 3 could not speak because Callaghan had already spoken to get Pyster’s amendment to where it was. We all knew it was her turn to speak, as she had not spoken, and this was the second delegates’ meeting in a row where this was happening to Callaghan.

The parliamentarian had told me over a year ago that she cannot step in unless the officer chairing the meeting asks her to. So confusion reigned again.

President Stewart now insisted that Callaghan at Mike Three was to be skipped over and that it was the turn of the speaker at Mike Four, Ray Wohl. At first he refused to speak saying it was Callaghan’s turn, but Stewart said if he didn’t speak she would skip over him.

Delegate Ray Wohl from Irving Park Middle School then spoke saying Maureen Callaghan had the right to speak, but when Stewart threatened to cut him off, he said that he was speaking because he had to. Stewart started telling him he was out of order, but she desisted when he loudly said that he was speaking for unity. He then said that it was his right to speak for the three minutes allotted.

Wohl said, “Shame on all of us delegates for letting our rights and powers as delegates to be taken away from us by high-powered staff members. Shame on all of us for giving away our rights.” He urged that the presidential candidates be allowed to speak for ten minutes.

Next spoke Gail Koffman who said that President Stewart had done a great job in communicating her accomplishments in office, and waving the current contract, she said that the other candidate [she who must always remain nameless when the officers and staff speak of her] only had this blue book to show what she could do.

Susan Steinmiller, delegate from Gage Park, then spoke in favor of the ten-minute amendment citing examples from her work with students as coordinator of the student council.

A voice vote was taken, and at the parliamentarian’s urging a standing vote was taken. How mystifying that the amendment lost.

The original motion of five minutes was approved.

President Stewart then said she would let her opponent speak first. [This is a tactic that has been used by all the incumbents in memory so that they could have the last word and be able to rebut any surprises.] A coin was then flipped for the position on the ballot. The UPC came into the first position on the left of the ballot.

The officers other than Stewart then gave their reports which in the main could be found in the delegates’ packets: e.g., Union membership is now 32,975.

Recording Secretary Mary McGuire again failed to include a motion made at the previous meeting in the minutes and it was urged that she make a correction that would be included in the packet for the next meeting.

Again McGuire still did not understand that the minutes should not read like the agenda for that meeting. However, if the UPC slate is voted in, perhaps in another three years she will be able to get it. Pam Massarsky, as one who was a recording secretary for many years, can’t you help her again as you did once?

As stated here earlier, the official question period was cut short again by a successful motion to adjourn, and the delegates left with their questions, comments, and motions left unanswered, unspoken, and undone. Please vote thoughtfully on May 18th.