Rank-and-file elected leadership takes action after disturbing information came to light last week about allies of Mayor Lori Lightfoot interfering in the Chicago Teachers Union officers election.
CHICAGO, February 16, 2022 — Chicago Teachers Union president Jesse Sharkey issued the following statement today to rank and file CTU members after the union’s elected House of Delegates met in a special session to pass new guardrails to protect the Union from illegal outside interference in CTU elections.
As you may know, disturbing information came to light last week about allies of Mayor Lori Lightfoot interfering in the Chicago Teachers Union officers election. The CTU House of Delegates met for a special meeting today to address the matter, and set guidelines protecting our union from outside interference. Delegates passed a resolution that condemns external intervention in our election, requires signed acknowledgement of federal, state and CTU constitutional election rules by all caucuses involved in the election, and lays out the grounds for disqualification of candidates who violate these rules.
Interference in internal CTU union elections is unprecedented and illegal, and a violation of our members’ rights. Even in the most hotly contested CTU elections of the 2000s, at no time did a sitting mayor or their allies overtly or covertly try and influence the process by which rank-and-file educators elect union officers.
Union organizers and activists have died fighting for this most basic form of democracy, from the 1887 Thibodaux Louisiana massacre of organized Black workers and their families to the 1979 Greensboro massacre of five labor organizers and supporters at the hands of anti-union Ku Klux Klan members and Nazis. Labor activists are still being tortured and assassinated across the world — from Bangladesh to Mexico — in the fight for worker rights, and we have both a right and an obligation to our rank and file and the global labor movement to ensure clean and fair elections.
To address this anti-democratic activity targeting the current CTU election cycle, our House of Delegates voted tonight to put guardrails in place that ensure that every Union election going forward will be protected from this kind of tampering. Delegates authorized and adopted a memorandum and acknowledgment describing federal and state law and CTU constitutional requirements surrounding elections — including prohibitions on outside interference — that must be signed by those gathering petitions for Union office, including candidates. The House also passed a resolution calling external election interference an affront to our democracy, and clearly laying out the consequences of violating our democratic rights, including election disqualification. Refer to the following for reference:
- Legal Memo and Affidavit: https://www.ctulocal1.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Elections-legal-memo.pdf
- Board of Ed rules on elections and politics: https://www.ctulocal1.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Board-Rules-on-Politics-Elections.pdf
- Resolution on Election Interference: https://www.ctulocal1.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Election-interference-resolution.pdf
Be clear: Interference in internal elections by our employer, allies of our employer, or anyone who is not a member of the Chicago Teachers Union is illegal and an affront to the democratic principles of our union. Robust debate within our membership on the priorities and direction of our Union is vitally important for our organizational strength and health; interference with our members’ democratic rights to select their own leadership is a grave threat to both.
We will continue to celebrate and protect our internal democracy, and today’s action by delegates will help preserve critical democratic practices. I am proud of our tradition of principled debate, and our longstanding tradition of coming together after every election in unity and solidarity. That unity has won us unprecedented gains for our students and protections for us all since 2019 and the subsequent onset of the pandemic.
Bad bosses come and go, but our unity as CTU members remains the heart of our collective strength as educators and advocates. We will not allow outsiders to undermine our solidarity or derail us from our ongoing effort to create the schools our students deserve.
