The Multifaceted Race To Oust CTU Leadership Regime After 12 Years

CHICAGO — The Chicago Teachers Union election set for Friday will decide the future of an incumbent leadership caucus that has been in power for a dozen years and operates as a socialist political party with ironic campaign-cash ties to the Democratic Machine.

Other news outlets have cast the election as a decision on whether CTU leaders should continue political battles for social justice issues that extend beyond schools, or shift their focus to more-traditional labor union issues such as salaries and working conditions.

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The CTU election narrative, however, is more nuanced than that.

Two union caucuses challenging the incumbent Caucus of Rank and File Educators — CORE — both have concerns about how the union spends money pushing its political agenda without input or oversight from rank-and-file members.

But only one of them — Members First— is running on a platform that calls for focusing the union's role on improving work conditions and pay for members. That caucus wants to move away from the current leadership's attempt to use contract negotiations and grievances as a platform to push for public school leaders to lobby for affordable housing, rent abatement and defunding the police department.

The Respect Educate Advocate and Lead caucus — a group of disgruntled former CORE members — posted an online pledge to "fight for racial justice, economic justice, disability justice, LGBTQIA+ advocacy, women's rights, immigrants’ rights, and the rights and dignity of all marginalized people. We believe these fights are not separate from our working conditions, our students’ learning conditions, or the needs of our communities."

REAL's slate wants CTU leadership to be more civil when dealing with City Hall and fellow teachers, as well as make its political operation more transparent and representative of the union's more than 25,000 members.

That's got everything to do with current CTU vice president and political director Stacy Davis Gates, who is running to replace lame-duck union boss Jessie Sharkey.

Davis Gates is both beloved and loathed by rank-and-file members, who are allowed opinions — but not input — on her strategies for lobbying and electoral politics. Spending $500,000 on Cook County Democratic Party boss Toni Preckwinkle's failed mayoral run, for instance. Or donating to campaign funds controlled by now-indicted former House Speaker Michael Madigan as a lobbying strategy. And deciding which political candidate is worthy of six-figure donations.

Davis Gates also chairs United Working Families, a political action committee funded by $242,600 in donations from the CTU Local 1's political war chest.

On March 31, CORE's political arm donated nearly two-thirds of Local 1's campaign war chest — $64,900 — to United Working Families, where Gates and Service Employee International Union insiders, among others, pick politicians to fund.

REAL Caucus candidates made transparency a campaign issue: "Our members deserve total transparency about CTU officers’ and staff salaries, as well as all major expenditures including but not limited to dues money for electoral campaigns, PAC money, and CTU Foundation funds."

For instance, some CTU members might not know the extent CORE leadership has gone all-in to support loyal state Rep. Delia Ramirez's congressional campaign in the crowded 3rd District race. Since September, Local 1's PAC has donated $158,000 to United For Delia, and another $65,000 to the "non-contribution" fund of the Working Families Party PAC — which donated $200,000 to Ramirez's campaign.

Those are just a few examples of CORE's unchecked political-financing maneuvers that Members First and REAL caucus members have been concerned about for years.

In 2019, Members First drafted (but did not file) a complaint that alleged CORE leaders circumvented campaign finance laws — through acts of "subterfuge" — to support six-figure lobbyist Brandon Johnson's successful run for Cook County commissioner in 2018.

In the draft complaint, Members First alleged that it was not a coincidence the exact amount of CTU PAC donations to Chicago Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza, state Sen. Robert Martwick and the Greater Austin Independent Political Organization were quickly passed on to Johnson's campaign fund in 2018.

Members First officials told Patch earlier this year that the draft wasn't filed with the state elections board in 2019 for several reasons, including the lack of sufficient punishments that would deter CTU leadership from funneling union cash to political action committees and candidates.

This year's CTU leadership election might be a better way to address their concerns.

The REAL caucus shares the same worry. Indeed, the group is running on a platform that promises no CTU officer "will ever take home two salaries, such as an additional one from the Illinois Federation of Teachers or the CTU Foundation."

That campaign pledge is directly aimed at Davis Gates.

See, Gates also moonlights as Illinois Federation of Teachers' executive vice president 10 hours a week, which pays about $164 an hour — an additional $85,382 on top of her six-figure CTU salary.

Not a bad part-time job, especially since Davis Gates' union jobs pay whether CTU goes on strike or not.

MORE ON PATCH: 33 Million Reasons Why Fed-Up Teachers Want To Unseat CTU Bosses

That's become relevant to Friday's CTU election, because rank-and-file teachers lost $33 million in pay when Sharkey and Davis Gates orchestrated a remote-learning boycott in January that ended without significant concessions beyond what public school officials had offered before the walkout.

In response to CTU members' lost pay, CORE leaders offered $300 loans to those who suffered economic hardship due to the walkout.

Loans. From a union that collects about $27 million-a-year in dues.

CTU's financial status isn't an issue that gets talked about a lot. But maybe it should be.

Under CORE leadership from 2014 to 2019, CTU's net income was $5.8 million in the red. And cash reserves shrunk from nearly $8 million to about $3 million, according to CTU's tax filings.

Not everybody was losing money, though.

A CORE founding-member's mother made millions, for instance.

Attorney Robin Potter negotiated the settlement of a federal lawsuit that alleged the firing of Black teachers and staff was racial discrimination. She was hired to represent CTU during the time her son — teacher and current CTU trustee Jackson Potter — served CORE's chief of staff.

In the settlement agreement, CPS didn't admit to wrongdoing, and 413 teachers were paid about $12,700 each — about $5.25 million. Robin Potter's firm collected $3.6 million. That's $8,716 per teacher.

And REAL caucus vice president candidate Joey McDermott got a six-figure check thanks to CORE's leadership.

McDermott, a longtime CORE field organizer, got fired for allegedly exhibiting "discourteous" behavior. At the time of his dismissal, he was told, "It's not your place to comment on CTU staff's behavior."

McDermott filed a grievance with the National Labor Board.

CORE quietly paid McDermott $100,000, according to public records.

So, yeah, Friday's election is bigger than whether CTU leaders should fight for social justice.

Teachers have to decide if they're going to reelect a CTU regime that drained the union's cash reserves, wasted half-a-million dollars on a failed mayoral candidate, lobbied Madigan the Chicago Way, fired a guy for talking out of turn, hired an insider's mom, leveraged positions to pad their paychecks and led an illegal strike that picked $33 million from rank-and-file pockets

It's about that, too.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docuseries on CNN and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary "16 Shots.

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