Chicago’s brand of teacher organizing goes viral
In June, thousands of CPS teachers and their supporters turned out for a march to support teachers' calls for a new, fair contract.
Then
After legendary Chicago Teachers Union president Jacqueline Vaughn died in 1994, her successor, Tom Reece, adopted a low profile and built a less challenging relationship with the school district, then led by CEO Paul Vallas.
A year later, Springfield slashed the union’s bargaining powers as part of the 1995 law that returned unfettered control of the school system to the mayor, then Richard M. Daley. (Specifically, the law eliminated a grassroots School Board nominating committee, which had been giving Daley candidates he didn't want.)
The lost bargaining powers included class size, layoffs, charter schools, privatization of services, the academic calendar and hours of instruction.
Years later, Reece’s cooperative relationship with CPS would come back to haunt him. In 2001 he was defeated for re-election by Deborah Lynch, a leader in the push to expand teacher union concerns beyond bread-and-butter issues to questions of policy and instructional practice.
Through their efforts to widen the union's scope, Lynch and the Proactive Teachers Caucus, or PACT, planted the seeds for the CTU of today. In a collection of essays published by the left-wing magazine Jacobin, current CTU President Karen Lewis recalls that she joined PACT in time to support Lynch’s win.
See ”The new law,” Catalyst September 1995 and “Deborah Lynch and the making of an upset,” Catalyst September 2001
Now
Though Lynch’s tenure proved short and divisive, a new cadre of union leaders regrouped with a mission to connect CTU organizing to broader issues of social justice and build alliances with like-minded unions and community groups.
They created the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE). Initially, CORE was a small study group trying to fight school turnarounds, privatization and closings, Lewis and CORE co-founder Jackson Potter told Rethinking Schools.
The larger goal was to shift the CTU from a traditional, staff-driven union focused on teachers pay Chicago’s brand of teacher organizing goes viral | Catalyst Chicago:
