The Chicago Teachers Union on Wednesday rejected an independent arbitrator’s recommendations for settling contract negotiations with Chicago Public Schools — a move that could take the school district closer to a teachers’ strike.
The report was publicly released late Wednesday by arbitrator Martin Malin. It showed he sided with the school district on its offer for salary raises and five staffing proposals while agreeing with the union’s demand for dozens more librarians in the school system and increased pay for veteran staff. He decided against offering recommendations in several other areas, sending the issues back to CPS and CTU for further negotiation.
CTU leaders said they were surprised by the report’s findings on some financial issues, calling it the most favorable the union has received in the 15 years since a state law was created allowing for a neutral arbitrator to weigh in on CPS-CTU negotiating disputes. But they said it didn’t go far enough in key areas of interest to the union.
CPS did not immediately say whether it would accept the arbitrator’s findings. In a statement late Wednesday, school officials said they were “carefully reviewing all of the recommendations, including the financial, operational and educational implications, to determine the most effective course of action for advancing negotiations.”
CPS noted that the report commended the district for academic progress and said the report “underscores the financial obstacles faced by the district, a sentiment that was corroborated by an independent review by the Civic Federation.”
CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said last week that he hoped the report would provide a “mutual set of facts to move forward in a productive way” to help settle the contract. Martinez also has said the two sides were close to a deal and he can’t “imagine a need for a strike.”
CTU-CPS contract factfinding reportThe neutral third-party report submitted to CPS and CTU on Tuesday night came after weeks of examination of the two sides’ proposals and was meant to offer an assessment of ways they could compromise.
Historically, the fact-finding report, as it’s called, has proven to be merely a step in the legal process toward a work stoppage. The CTU has routinely rejected the findings and long complained that the exercise is stacked against the union because the state law limits the issues that can be considered for recommendation.
The process was established in 2010 at the urging of former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. This is the fourth time fact-finding has been used; the previous three times ended in a strike.
In a first, Stacy Davis Gates, the CTU president, said Wednesday the report gave her “renewed optimism” that a deal could be reached with CPS. The CTU as recently as Tuesday had set the stage for a very unfavorable report.
“I’m just as dumbfounded reading through it myself because I did not expect to read some of the things that I read,” Davis Gates told reporters at a media briefing Wednesday. “We’ve never had one that has read like this before — the specificity in which the fact-finder is pushing the things that we believe needs to happen.
“We don’t agree with everything in it, [but] there are things in it that make a lot of sense in terms of moving this thing ahead.”
Thad Goodchild, the CTU’s deputy general counsel, said the report “exploded the myth that CPS can’t afford to put more into schools.”
The report didn’t explicitly say CPS has more money to afford CTU’s demands, but it did say the school district could do better in a few areas, such as adding librarians, mostly because the costs were not exorbitant.
The union and school district are not far apart on raises. But the union also is seeking additional increases for veteran teachers, who they say fall behind their peers. And the CTU wants more staffing in schools.
The report also referenced CPS’ success in finding ways to pay for past labor agreements and cited a senior CPS official’s view that closing next year’s anticipated $750 million budget gap was “in the realm of doable” because of projected revenue increases and budget cuts that don’t hurt schools.
But the arbitrator made clear that he had to consider CPS’ financial constraints, as well as those of the city and state governments.
The arbitrator only made recommendations on a few of 15 key areas of contention.
He recommended adding some pay raises for veteran teachers. He also recommended adding 30 librarians in the district in each of the next three school years. The report didn’t take a position on staffing proposals for nurses, citing recruiting troubles, or on teaching assistants — a role that is under dispute with SEIU Local 73-represented special education classroom assistants.
The arbitrator agreed with the district’s proposals for hiring fine arts teachers, case managers, counselors, technology coordinators and English language learner program teachers.
The union called the findings “incomplete” since the arbitrator was only charged with considering what the school district could afford based on its current resources, leaving alone other issues like teacher evaluations, who has final say over curriculum, teacher preparation time and more.
Martinez and his team have insisted they have already offered the union more than what they technically can afford. Ben Felton, CPS’ human resources chief, has said the 16% cost of living raises across four years are more than has been offered in past contracts.
“We didn't want to nickel and dime our teachers,” Felton said. “We wanted them to understand that we value them and that they deserve fair compensation. This is what the district can afford. At this point, we cannot afford more than that.”
The CTU’s rejection is part of the legal process toward a strike. Once either side rejects the fact-finder’s report, state law requires a 30-day “cooling off period” before the union can strike. That makes early March the soonest the CTU could walk out.
While it always seemed unlikely the CTU would strike against Mayor Brandon Johnson — its staunch ally and former union organizer — the prospects of a walkout have greatly increased as the tension between the union and Martinez has escalated in recent months. Johnson’s appointed Board of Education fired Martinez in December, but Martinez’s contract allows him to stay on the job for six months because he was dismissed without cause.
CTU leaders said Wednesday that they didn’t feel a labor stoppage would be necessary, though Davis Gates didn’t rule one out. She didn’t announce a strike authorization vote.
“Parents are not going to read this fact-finding report and even think [a strike] makes sense to them,” Davis Gates said. “They’re going to read this fact-finding report and they’re going to question why the CEO continues to give doomsday reporting vis-a-vis the budgeting.
“We’re not crazy. We know the state of Illinois does not fund our schools in the way that it needs to. … We’re not even going to let them off the hook, either,” she said. “What we want is a contract that is fair, that is reasonable, that is just. And that’s all we have ever asked for. And they have room to provide that, and we have to get there.”
