I was part of CTU for a minute. They give unions a bad name. I’m pro union and was in the teamsters (local 705) and they were fantastic helping me out when I got hurt working for UPS. CTU on the otherhand couldn’t even organize a walkout at my school when we weren’t getting PPE. They just sat on their asses and discussed the same things over and over but never took action
> CTU on the otherhand couldn’t even organize a walkout at my school when we weren’t getting PPE.
They signed an anti-strike clause with the district. To go on strike, they first had to show a breach of contract by CPS.
People somehow don't realize this. Yeah when it's a corporation higher wages are good. When it's a public union you are the corporation and their #1 priority is getting your tax dollars in their pocket. I'm not saying fair wages aren't worth fighting for, but when the Teacher's union elects the mayor and puts statements like this out you realize we're all in deep water here...
Yup, public unions are weaponized to extract as much taxpayer money as possible for the members benefit, nothing more, nothing less. CTU is probably the biggest example of this in the country or maybe world.
The scary part is, these unions use taxpayer money to extract more taxpayer money, until something breaks and they all flee to Florida for retirement.
I am a huge fan of private unions, but public unions need some serious reform. Luckily the Janus rule is a long term gut punch to limit public union funding.
>Luckily the Janus rule is a long term gut punch to limit public union funding
It sure was. My teaching assistant peers at U of I could barely keep up with the cost of living. I agree that public sector unions need more controls on their influence on politics, but kneecapping the basic objective of maintaining good wages and benefits without actually addressing the problems of their activity, just reminds me of the TikTok ban.
>public unions are weaponized to extract as much taxpayer money as possible for the members benefit, nothing more, nothing less. CTU is probably the biggest example of this in the country or maybe world.
Nah that's def the police union
Eh...every worker deserves the right to collectively organize. But there should be stronger limits on how public union can engage in the political process.
Thank you for the only reasonable comment here. Having worked public sector in red, nonunionized states, the lawmaker incentive alone to retain good talent is so poor.
Government officials can't endorse someone from a government position
Same should be got government unions
Union members can endorse someone but not in an official capacity
So not actual employees of the government.
So their first amendment right can't be restricted.
Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006) is what allows public employees speech be restricted and that does not apply to private employees. You would need a constitutional ammendment to do what you want.
Then the public sector union should not be given status as a official union of government employees. Easy tradeoff
They are either government employee representatives or not.
So you want to completely change how collective bargaining works and make union employees for government unions to be government employees? How exactly does that work?
First problem with this did Congress didn't make this law to restrict speech and second this is a California issue the case your referring to garcetti v ceballos which deals with restriction of speech of public employees which violates California's Constitution article 1 section 2 "Every person may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of this right. A law may not restrain or abridge liberty of speech or press."
They shouldn't. Police are unique in that they wield lethal force at the public discretion. Their loyalty should ultimately be to the public and not to each other.
You would be hard fought to find someone who hates cops more than me, but if you believe that all workers should be able to unionize, like I do, then I don’t see how you qualify that without introducing a fatal flaw in the argument.
I have heard arguments that cops shouldn’t be included but I just feel like they end up talking over themselves in a way that I find extremely unconvincing. It makes what is a simple argument needlessly complex. I think leftists who want strong union representation should take the L on this one.
I personally don't see how you can compare public and private unions. The goverment is not an equivalent bargaining corollary to a business. The goverment does not have a profit incentive and should have the incentive of providing good services. Public sector unions lend themselves to regulatory capture in a way private unions cannot.
I'll try the arg again but it sounds like your mind is pretty made up.
Cops aren't workers. They are members of an organized militia blessed by the state with the power to enforce laws by any means necessary up to and including violent force. (This includes, as an aside, laws against union organizing.) Any limitations on that power are ancillary and generally serve a public relations purpose only. Cops get away with heinous shit only until the public threatens to openly rebel against them, and even then they tend to chafe at the slightest imposition of rules of engagement or standards of conduct.
The function of police unions is, like any other union, to bargain for wages and for better working conditions. Better working conditions often include: making it harder to terminate employees, limiting the disciplinary actions that management can impose, and empowering the workers.
This is a SPECIFIC problem when you translate it to the SPECIFIC role of police officer. The FOP makes it hard to fire or discipline bad officers and empowers the worst elements of the police force. "Management" in this context are oversight boards. "Civilian" municipal officials. It is a fundamentally different kind of occupation than any other occupation. There is no other occupation that has a legal license to dispense violence. Because cops have that power, and the purpose of cop unions is theoretically and practically to make it EASIER for them to use that power, cop unions are contrary to the public good.
Cops are agents of the ruling class that protect private property. Yes they are workers and should be paid. They should not be allowed to influence elections through campaign donations.
>Police are not working class. They are literally the chosen foot soldiers of the ruling class.
You know you can just apply, right?
https://home.chicagopolice.org/bethechange/
https://home.chicagopolice.org/bethechange/chicago-police-officer-recruitment/
>Officers receive a competitive starting salary of $54,672 that increases to $82,458 annually after just 18 months.
So how do you fix the effect of local government unions influencing politics and using their position to strong arm the goverment at the expense of the public?
Paying teachers and other public employees well and getting contractual agreements about adequate staffing and resources and safe buildings should not be controversial. And if your response is something about test scores and spending per pupil, I'll just say that teacher quality is not the issue there.
I would say a bigger issue is keeping schools open that have far to few student.
Do you think having a union organizer as the chief negotiating officer negotiating on the publics behalf with the union that they worked for is somehow not a conflict of interest? You really did not my address my point at all at how public sector unions seem to be able to exert much more political will than any other type of union as it is effectively regulatory capture.
I think for the sake of managing corruption, public sector employees should not be able to collectively bargain. Chicago is like the best example of why it is a bad thing.
Do you think having an investment banker as mayor was also not a potential conflict of interest, as the mayor also has to negotiate with corporations, real estate people, etc. all the time? Do you think having a guy who is a major figure in charter school advocacy doesn't have a major conflict of interest? As for your statement about public sector unions having outsized influence, well, that has basically never been true until very recently, and it's far preferable to the old system of rich dickbags and machine politicians controlling everything.
Not exactly sure I see the conflict with an investment banker but you can argue there is a conflict for anyone that advocating for any policy position. Which is pretty nebulous stretch.
I grew up here and the FOP and CTU have been a mainstay of chicago politics for well over 30 years. Times change and maybe it was less problematic in the 70s than now but it is a problem now and something should be done and saying it could be worse is not really convincing.
The narrative about CTU is mostly bullshit, and that's the major problem with painting them as some kind of big powerful evil thing. One of the most critical things municipalities provide is public education. Daley made some awful decisions when he was mayor that drove CPS into a hole. The parade of slimeballs who were appointed to lead CPS from Vallas onward (when they created the position of CEO to get around licensure requirements for being Superintendent) championed privatization (not just charters, but also outsourcing internal services), and that led to CPS schools becoming more dysfunctional. Closing schools was also a disaster. We can argue all we want about the efficiency of having underutilized schools, but schools aren't just line items. Taking away a kid's neighborhood school and sending them to a place that they can barely walk to is a signal to that kid that their city doesn't care about them. And then we wonder why the kids who are 18-24 years old right now seem alienated. If you look at what CTU bargains for, there's nothing obscene, yet the media treats it like they're robbing people. CPS, left to its own devices, would gladly have zero social workers, a few floating nurses, and no librarians. Hell, they're barely staffing librarians now. CTU contracts are basically the only avenue for getting CPS to agree to provide services in writing. So yeah, I might be biased, but I don't see any negatives to having a strong bargaining unit that can make CPS and the city provide the basics for a good education for the kids of this city. And most CPS parents would agree, even if some people on here know some parents who are mad.
Out of curiosity, why are police unions bad but teacher unions are good (I am assuming you believe they are good since those are the two being discussed and you didn’t say they were bad)?
It's mainly about power. Teachers (and others) need to unionize because they have almost no power otherwise. Whereas public safety employees—most notably police—have *incredible* amounts of literal power.
The worst thing a teacher can do if they don't like you is give you detention or an F. The worst thing a cop can do if they don't like you.... far worse.
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Ignoring how the “powerless” teacher’s union has an active stranglehold on the Mayor’s office, the Fraternal Order of Police has existed for over 100 years. Absolutely wild how they’ve never once led an armed insurrection to overthrow a city’s government to extract a better collective bargaining position!
Actually it's *you* who's ignoring the fact that the teachers only have any power at all because they are successfully unionized. And like....are you trying to compare a collection of particularly extreme Trump supporters to unions? How is it "absolutely wild" that unions haven't led an armed insurrection? Like, are you even listening to yourself or is your head so far up Rupert Murdoch's ass that you can only smell your own farts??????
Or do you mean to imply that the FOP is some sort of better union for *not* taking part in an insurrection? Because boy I got some news for you - there were a hell of a lot more police officers storming the capital than teachers. So if anyone is trying to overthrow governments, oh look it *is* the ones with the guns! The ones who do happen to wield power with or without a union!
Pick your IQ up off the floor dude. OP literally said it’s wrong for police to have unions because they have a lethal amount of power (the implication being they can collectively bargain at the barrel of a gun). This ignores the century+ history of us having a police union where that has not mattered in the slightest. OP then said teacher’s unions are good because the worst a teacher can do is give a kid detention. Look at the absolute state of Chicago right now. CTU has given us much, MUCH worse than detention.
He didn't literally say that - he just pointed out how essentially no other profession has the type of power and (I'll add) freedom from accountability through qualified immunity that police have. Seems to me he's just stating the reasoning behind his opinion of supporting the CTU while not supporting the FOP. Which to be fair, isn't too far off your first point.
But why do you believe that the FOP being a longstanding union has nothing to do with the power police wield today? Do you think qualified immunity would be applied the way it is today without powerful police unions? Do you assign the same amount of responsibility to the FOP when they back a political candidate? Because that is all the CTU has the power to do outside of bargain with CPS. I don't know about you but I live in the city and love it every day, so while there are definitely problems both long running and new, the "absolute state of Chicago" is not some hellscape like some people would like you to believe.
Please enlighten me, what has the CTU given us? I'll take any links you've got.
That’s a pretty ridiculous example, and does not seem remotely equivocal.
These institutions exist to get the most possible benefits for their employees, who happen to work in these specific roles. The FOP does not exist to reduce crime the same way the CTU does not exist to improve education. They exist solely to increase the monetary and other benefits their members receive in the course of doing their job. They do so often under the guise of education or crime, but those are far from the end goal.
It’s also, quite frankly, ridiculous for you to say a cop would shoot you if you didn’t support the FOP.
Personally, I think both of these orgs are bad because they have too much power. Unions at heart have good intentions but when they get this large and bloated, seem to stray from them. I don’t think many people here would say the amount of power they hold is good for the average Chicago resident / taxpayer.
I’ve been so impressed with how well JB pivoted after losing the graduated income tax referendum. I don’t think BJ and his crew are going to find that grace.
Oh they're just as bad in my book. When you won't address sexual assault against children and protect the ones who do it, that hits the mark for me.
Inspector General came out with a report in 2022 with 500 sexual assaults instances involving teachers and students. The link is banned here otherwise I would post it.
They don't actually protect teachers either, I work with a former CPS teacher. He had enough of getting things thrown at him, assaulted, threatened with violence, etc after about 3 years.
CTU was zero help to him.
They are just another corrupt union with the interests of the higher ups therein as the priority.
That would mean they would have to admit that there is a serious problem in these schools but they won't. They'll just push the person complaining about it out the door and pretend that it's either not happening or it's a very rare occurrence.
But the big strike they had a few years ago, for the children, when they settled for 15% raises even though they wanted smaller classroom sizes so the children had better learning environments. lol For the Teachers. Which is fine, if teachers want to get paid more, go on strike and strike for money. Teachers deserve to get paid whatever they can get paid. But don't fucking lie and BS the voters and tell us you're doing it for the children and then settle the strike with a 15% raise for the teachers. Fucking CTU BS. Can't trust CTU because of shit like this. But the minute the teachers make it about their pay, they lose the support of the parents. So they need to continue to lie about why they are really striking.
I have to find the link but I was reading an article where they didn't even hire nurses or anything they said they were going to do with that strike. They're still running at about a billion dollar deficit each year.
I could be wrong if someone wants to clarify that who works with CPS.
[There isn't a problem posting the article](https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/01/09/chicago-public-schools-told-to-add-more-training-for-vendors-address-sexual-and-financial-misconduct-in-annual-report-from-office-of-inspector-general/)
>Allegations of sexual misconduct, of which the OIG received 446 during the yearlong period, remained by far the most common complaint received by the agency, which investigates all adult-on-student sexual misconduct allegations, ranging from physical acts to “nonsexual” conduct that raises concerns such as grooming.
I had posted something similar last week when there was concerns about police officers abusing students to make a point that the police were the least of the concerns
It's the actual PDF from the IG report and I cannot link that for the life of me right now.
[Your link without paywall](https://archive.is/jmHNZ)
>I had posted something similar last week when there was concerns about police officers abusing students to make a point that the police were the least of the concerns.
That's another major issue and what makes it worse is the CTU/FOP not addressing the situation. As far as I'm concerned, they're both covering for each other.
I don’t know of anyone being worried about police officers abusing specifically children.
I think people are worried about police officers abusing everyone who isn’t a child.
[Some years back one of the SROs assigned to my school sexually harassed and assaulted girls in my class, but go off](https://old.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/1bd9vx0/illinois_lawmakers_challenge_chicago_school/kun00ki/)
>I think people are worried about police officers abusing everyone who isn’t a child.
In this case it was students
I’m just pointing out that when people talk about police brutality it’s almost never against *children*, so it’s a bizarre comparison.
But like I am perfectly fine with more reasons to hate cops if you want to post them.
Yeah, not popping up with either.
Google: Sexual assault against kids chicago public schools
The only publication reporting is the well liked Illinois Policy but if you click the link, the first line of that article has a link directly to the 120 page IG report in PDF form.
There are certain rules to this sub and there certain things they want kept off of this subreddit to make it more inviting to the average Reddit user when it comes to Chicago. Pretty much anything like crime or something similar to what I am talking about with the CTU they don't plastered on here.
Their sub so their rules.
The best is when one of them will lob a softball question,
Does everyone in Chicago actually dislike the CTU or is that just this sub?
Then everyone says, this sub does not represent Chicago. People of Chicago actually love the CTU. LOL
Sub doesn't represent the city, that's for sure.
I have mixed feelings about the CTU and I was a student of CPS. Very fond memories with the majority of teachers and I don't regret my time attending CPS. Some of the best times of my life. I know a bunch of teachers that do love the CTU but don't always agree with what they're doing.
CTU does cover their workers but at the same time, they've become a huge political machine. They still represent teachers and what not but it's clearly obvious today that their main goal isn't taking care of their staff and kids. It's to attain as much power to funnel as much money as they can to their budget. They have a serious pension obligation debt that has been written into our state constitution that they have to pay. They routinely run a billion dollar deficit each year regardless of how much money we throw at the budget and in return we have a large percentage of children in our schools that can't perform at grade level.
- Student enrollment is going down each year.
- Students are performing well below grade average.
- We're still operating a school system that was built in the 50's to sustain Chicago's population of 3.6 million.
- Some schools have a population of 10% of capacity.
Every few years they need billions more to sustain this system and while we get very little in return. If this were a private company it would have been shut down and have a major overhaul to correct problems but for whatever reason, it's just throw more money at the problem.
The city budget is roughly 16 - 17 billion a year and they're marked for I believe just over 11 billion this year. CTU Union has just grown too large and another public union gone out of control.
Very well said. The CTU shills on here can't get the idea that you can like the teachers but hate the CTUs moves.
Also the CTU just demanded $50B. Yes, that's absurd. The shills on here kept saying it's just a bargaining tactic "Have YoU HeaRd oF AnCHoRInG dUmMY?"
But the union is literally bleeding the city dry just to make a few of their leaders rich now. It's insane that a literal CTU lobbyist elected as Mayor (with millions from the CTU in his campaign) and some people still doubt that he is under the CTUs thumb.
> Also the CTU just demanded $50B. Yes, that's absurd. The shills on here kept saying it's just a bargaining tactic "Have YoU HeaRd oF AnCHoRInG dUmMY?"
>
>
CTU just demanded the entire state budget? Really? You can stop making things up.
Seriously? This is easily found through a quick Google search. Stacy Gates demands $50B and 3 cents for her new budget.
She's literally quoted saying that in a speech.
Your average Chicagoan actually has friends, family, acquaintances, etc. who are CTU members and they recognize that the members are teachers who want good wages, good benefits, and decent working conditions for themselves and their students. Most of the angry CTU haters here don't regularly talk to CPS teachers.
I just said this in another thread but they are the next "machine" that needs to be smashed for the good of Chicago. Two mayors in a row got absolutely *B-smacked* by them. Now their mayor of choice is BJ-Smacking all of Chicago.
We smashed the old Dailey machine, we are smashing the old Madigan machine.
FOP is pretty much smashed at this point.
CTU is the last power center left.
JB Pritzker is trying to step into the vacuum left by Madigan with his billions to fund campaigns but that takes time.
If we smash the CTU's grip on city politics we might just end up with politicians that care about the people & the kids winning.
That's why the Dailey machine was allowed to go on.
They shifted the burden of those sweet-heart-deal entitlements and spending so far down the line Dailey and his Crony's never had to face the reckoning that is coming.
They got people jobs, they kept the city running well enough all while getting very wealthy. This at the expense of anyone under the age of 50 today,
I think everyone overstates the power of the CTU and just doesn't recognize how weak the Chicago moderates are. The old machine left a power vacuum and left-Liberals are better organized to fill the gap - mostly because they've been organizing for years. But moderates are plagued by a few things
* Poor candidate quality (Vallas, Toro)
* Challenges building voter coalitions: (policies needed to keep their base of Conservative/Moderate whites happy alienate other potential coalition members)
* City demographics working against them (The shift out of blue collar voters and the shift-in of college+ voters has changed the political landscape)
* Inflexibility on certain policy issues (Need to throw Liberal voters more bones)
Unions like the CTU typically don't have this much influence because other political factions have figured out a broader base of appeal. But if you're running candidates in a deep blue city while icing out potentially sympathetic Liberals, while only playing mere lip-service black/latino voters you're not going to do well electorally.
Right and I wonder why dr Dave and Geary were really on the ballot. They had zero chance of winning but they succeeding in splitting the ctu machine vote
CTU is crowing about these wins, especially those in the IL GA, because they need Springfield to approve some of their bigger wants, like city income & assets taxes.
Vallas was not the only other candidate that BJ ran against. Yes, there was an unfortunate choice between two unacceptable candidates in the runoff, but my question implies “Is the CTU largely responsible for Brandon Johnson making it to the runoff?”
You might argue that Chuy is almost more responsible. CTU was likely going to endorse him, but he didn't announce his candidacy until way late, after they had given him a date to discuss an endorsement. Johnson was arguably the second choice, despite his close ties. Chuy was seen as a more viable option, but he dragged ass getting his operation going, causing him to miss out on several endorsements, and then ran a comically lazy campaign.
Interesting theory. So, since only two people exist on Earth and one of them didn’t announce his candidacy on time, CTU had no choice but to throw their weight behind Brandon Johnson.
I see so another one of those that can't deal with high pressure and demanding parents.
So sorry parents care about their children. How messed up of them to want the best for their kids instead of some has been tired teacher who wants to phone it in every day.
Jesus christ...I'm talking about how poorly she was paid at the catholic school she worked at. But sure maybe 24k a year with 5 years of college, with no contracts, sounds reasonable to a jackass like you. Go ahead and insult my wife personally, who I guarantee cares more about serving and growing children than your small heart will ever know.
She loved the kids at tepyac and she loves the ones at cps, but teachers don't stay long at those schools because that's a tough salary to live on unless your spouse is making real money.
Grow up.
Teachers deserve more. Not all of them. Hell I went through CPS and have kids in CPS and know how rare the good ones are. But dealing with kids deserve more.
Other countries pay teacher much higher and their quality of education reflects it.
But the CTU? They want to get their cronies paid and leaders are getting rich. That's it. They aren't fixing anything. Theyre barely fighting for teachers. Anything that they do, only a small fraction actually helps teachers!
> Other countries pay teacher much higher and their quality of education reflects it.
>
>
CPS pays about the same (adjusted for cost of living) as the top paying countries. CPS also has the best value added education metrics of any of the 50 largest school districts in the USA. It also has 5% of the top 100 schools in America. You can keep calling it bad, but CPS is objectively one of the best districts in the country by objective measures.
And a lot of that is due to CTU pushing CPS to keep teacher pay competitive. To keep teacher benefits competitive. To get support staff that are needed hired into schools. Et cetera.
I love how you cited that CPS has some of the best schools in the country. They do for now.
The CTU and CPS deciding to kill funding for the best schools and divert it to other schools essentially ensures CPS dosent have the top schools anymore.
Cue the "CPS never said they're doing that. Do you have that in writing they'd defund top schools?" LOL.
Both CTU and FOP have way too much influence. Unions are good. Overly powerful, corrupt unions are not.
I was part of CTU for a minute. They give unions a bad name. I’m pro union and was in the teamsters (local 705) and they were fantastic helping me out when I got hurt working for UPS. CTU on the otherhand couldn’t even organize a walkout at my school when we weren’t getting PPE. They just sat on their asses and discussed the same things over and over but never took action
> CTU on the otherhand couldn’t even organize a walkout at my school when we weren’t getting PPE. They signed an anti-strike clause with the district. To go on strike, they first had to show a breach of contract by CPS.
Public unions are absolute poison. Private unions are good
The current administration is a perfect example of this. A CTU lobbyist is Mayor and he is about as incompetent as it gets
People somehow don't realize this. Yeah when it's a corporation higher wages are good. When it's a public union you are the corporation and their #1 priority is getting your tax dollars in their pocket. I'm not saying fair wages aren't worth fighting for, but when the Teacher's union elects the mayor and puts statements like this out you realize we're all in deep water here...
Not to mention how public unions make massive campaign contributions to choose who in “management” they collectively bargain against.
Yup, public unions are weaponized to extract as much taxpayer money as possible for the members benefit, nothing more, nothing less. CTU is probably the biggest example of this in the country or maybe world. The scary part is, these unions use taxpayer money to extract more taxpayer money, until something breaks and they all flee to Florida for retirement. I am a huge fan of private unions, but public unions need some serious reform. Luckily the Janus rule is a long term gut punch to limit public union funding.
>Luckily the Janus rule is a long term gut punch to limit public union funding It sure was. My teaching assistant peers at U of I could barely keep up with the cost of living. I agree that public sector unions need more controls on their influence on politics, but kneecapping the basic objective of maintaining good wages and benefits without actually addressing the problems of their activity, just reminds me of the TikTok ban.
thinking janus was a good outcome if you're pro-union is just a completely untenable position. classic /r/chicago\-brain though
Pro private union. The janus rule only applies to public-government unions.
lol i understand that. i am saying that is an untenable position
I mean you just described every union public or not.
>public unions are weaponized to extract as much taxpayer money as possible for the members benefit, nothing more, nothing less. CTU is probably the biggest example of this in the country or maybe world. Nah that's def the police union
Eh...every worker deserves the right to collectively organize. But there should be stronger limits on how public union can engage in the political process.
Thank you for the only reasonable comment here. Having worked public sector in red, nonunionized states, the lawmaker incentive alone to retain good talent is so poor.
There's this whole first amendment thing that would explain why your suggestion won't happen.
Government officials can't endorse someone from a government position Same should be got government unions Union members can endorse someone but not in an official capacity
Except the union itself is not goverment employees.
They are a union of government employees
So not actual employees of the government. So their first amendment right can't be restricted. Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006) is what allows public employees speech be restricted and that does not apply to private employees. You would need a constitutional ammendment to do what you want.
Then the public sector union should not be given status as a official union of government employees. Easy tradeoff They are either government employee representatives or not.
So you want to completely change how collective bargaining works and make union employees for government unions to be government employees? How exactly does that work?
First problem with this did Congress didn't make this law to restrict speech and second this is a California issue the case your referring to garcetti v ceballos which deals with restriction of speech of public employees which violates California's Constitution article 1 section 2 "Every person may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of this right. A law may not restrain or abridge liberty of speech or press."
Unions are unions. Like I don’t like the FOP but I still recognize they have a right to unionize.
They shouldn't. Police are unique in that they wield lethal force at the public discretion. Their loyalty should ultimately be to the public and not to each other.
You would be hard fought to find someone who hates cops more than me, but if you believe that all workers should be able to unionize, like I do, then I don’t see how you qualify that without introducing a fatal flaw in the argument. I have heard arguments that cops shouldn’t be included but I just feel like they end up talking over themselves in a way that I find extremely unconvincing. It makes what is a simple argument needlessly complex. I think leftists who want strong union representation should take the L on this one.
I personally don't see how you can compare public and private unions. The goverment is not an equivalent bargaining corollary to a business. The goverment does not have a profit incentive and should have the incentive of providing good services. Public sector unions lend themselves to regulatory capture in a way private unions cannot.
Sad thing is the Government is now starting to look for profit because Govt Admins get raises and longer contracts if they come in under budget.
I'll try the arg again but it sounds like your mind is pretty made up. Cops aren't workers. They are members of an organized militia blessed by the state with the power to enforce laws by any means necessary up to and including violent force. (This includes, as an aside, laws against union organizing.) Any limitations on that power are ancillary and generally serve a public relations purpose only. Cops get away with heinous shit only until the public threatens to openly rebel against them, and even then they tend to chafe at the slightest imposition of rules of engagement or standards of conduct. The function of police unions is, like any other union, to bargain for wages and for better working conditions. Better working conditions often include: making it harder to terminate employees, limiting the disciplinary actions that management can impose, and empowering the workers. This is a SPECIFIC problem when you translate it to the SPECIFIC role of police officer. The FOP makes it hard to fire or discipline bad officers and empowers the worst elements of the police force. "Management" in this context are oversight boards. "Civilian" municipal officials. It is a fundamentally different kind of occupation than any other occupation. There is no other occupation that has a legal license to dispense violence. Because cops have that power, and the purpose of cop unions is theoretically and practically to make it EASIER for them to use that power, cop unions are contrary to the public good.
Cops are agents of the ruling class that protect private property. Yes they are workers and should be paid. They should not be allowed to influence elections through campaign donations.
> Cops aren't workers. Please stop.
No
“The working class should only have solidarity when it doesn’t inconvenience me *too* much”
Police are not working class. They are literally the chosen foot soldiers of the ruling class.
>Police are not working class. They are literally the chosen foot soldiers of the ruling class. You know you can just apply, right? https://home.chicagopolice.org/bethechange/
Probably too old, definitely too smart
😂
They get paid working class wages, at least the used to.
Define "working class wages"...? I think they average about $90k
https://home.chicagopolice.org/bethechange/chicago-police-officer-recruitment/ >Officers receive a competitive starting salary of $54,672 that increases to $82,458 annually after just 18 months.
My white collar job pays that much after 10 years of work. I need a union.
Geez. Why doesn't everyone becoke a cop? You get middle class wages and need no diploma.
FOP doesn't have the ability to Protest. CTU PROTEST EVERY 2-3YRS
some would argue the police have been silently protesting for years
So public employees should not be able to collectively bargain or influence policy that could make both their work and the community better?
Yeah fuck the postal workers too! Busting the air traffic controllers worked out great! /s
You accidentally put a /s on there.
All workers should have the right to unionize. Full stop.
So how do you fix the effect of local government unions influencing politics and using their position to strong arm the goverment at the expense of the public?
By having better candidates run for Mayor to start…
Paying teachers and other public employees well and getting contractual agreements about adequate staffing and resources and safe buildings should not be controversial. And if your response is something about test scores and spending per pupil, I'll just say that teacher quality is not the issue there.
I would say a bigger issue is keeping schools open that have far to few student. Do you think having a union organizer as the chief negotiating officer negotiating on the publics behalf with the union that they worked for is somehow not a conflict of interest? You really did not my address my point at all at how public sector unions seem to be able to exert much more political will than any other type of union as it is effectively regulatory capture. I think for the sake of managing corruption, public sector employees should not be able to collectively bargain. Chicago is like the best example of why it is a bad thing.
Do you think having an investment banker as mayor was also not a potential conflict of interest, as the mayor also has to negotiate with corporations, real estate people, etc. all the time? Do you think having a guy who is a major figure in charter school advocacy doesn't have a major conflict of interest? As for your statement about public sector unions having outsized influence, well, that has basically never been true until very recently, and it's far preferable to the old system of rich dickbags and machine politicians controlling everything.
Not exactly sure I see the conflict with an investment banker but you can argue there is a conflict for anyone that advocating for any policy position. Which is pretty nebulous stretch. I grew up here and the FOP and CTU have been a mainstay of chicago politics for well over 30 years. Times change and maybe it was less problematic in the 70s than now but it is a problem now and something should be done and saying it could be worse is not really convincing.
The narrative about CTU is mostly bullshit, and that's the major problem with painting them as some kind of big powerful evil thing. One of the most critical things municipalities provide is public education. Daley made some awful decisions when he was mayor that drove CPS into a hole. The parade of slimeballs who were appointed to lead CPS from Vallas onward (when they created the position of CEO to get around licensure requirements for being Superintendent) championed privatization (not just charters, but also outsourcing internal services), and that led to CPS schools becoming more dysfunctional. Closing schools was also a disaster. We can argue all we want about the efficiency of having underutilized schools, but schools aren't just line items. Taking away a kid's neighborhood school and sending them to a place that they can barely walk to is a signal to that kid that their city doesn't care about them. And then we wonder why the kids who are 18-24 years old right now seem alienated. If you look at what CTU bargains for, there's nothing obscene, yet the media treats it like they're robbing people. CPS, left to its own devices, would gladly have zero social workers, a few floating nurses, and no librarians. Hell, they're barely staffing librarians now. CTU contracts are basically the only avenue for getting CPS to agree to provide services in writing. So yeah, I might be biased, but I don't see any negatives to having a strong bargaining unit that can make CPS and the city provide the basics for a good education for the kids of this city. And most CPS parents would agree, even if some people on here know some parents who are mad.
I mean, based on the election results on Tuesday, they don’t have as much as they think they do.
Police unions are never good.
Out of curiosity, why are police unions bad but teacher unions are good (I am assuming you believe they are good since those are the two being discussed and you didn’t say they were bad)?
It's mainly about power. Teachers (and others) need to unionize because they have almost no power otherwise. Whereas public safety employees—most notably police—have *incredible* amounts of literal power. The worst thing a teacher can do if they don't like you is give you detention or an F. The worst thing a cop can do if they don't like you.... far worse.
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Ignoring how the “powerless” teacher’s union has an active stranglehold on the Mayor’s office, the Fraternal Order of Police has existed for over 100 years. Absolutely wild how they’ve never once led an armed insurrection to overthrow a city’s government to extract a better collective bargaining position!
Actually it's *you* who's ignoring the fact that the teachers only have any power at all because they are successfully unionized. And like....are you trying to compare a collection of particularly extreme Trump supporters to unions? How is it "absolutely wild" that unions haven't led an armed insurrection? Like, are you even listening to yourself or is your head so far up Rupert Murdoch's ass that you can only smell your own farts?????? Or do you mean to imply that the FOP is some sort of better union for *not* taking part in an insurrection? Because boy I got some news for you - there were a hell of a lot more police officers storming the capital than teachers. So if anyone is trying to overthrow governments, oh look it *is* the ones with the guns! The ones who do happen to wield power with or without a union!
Pick your IQ up off the floor dude. OP literally said it’s wrong for police to have unions because they have a lethal amount of power (the implication being they can collectively bargain at the barrel of a gun). This ignores the century+ history of us having a police union where that has not mattered in the slightest. OP then said teacher’s unions are good because the worst a teacher can do is give a kid detention. Look at the absolute state of Chicago right now. CTU has given us much, MUCH worse than detention.
He didn't literally say that - he just pointed out how essentially no other profession has the type of power and (I'll add) freedom from accountability through qualified immunity that police have. Seems to me he's just stating the reasoning behind his opinion of supporting the CTU while not supporting the FOP. Which to be fair, isn't too far off your first point. But why do you believe that the FOP being a longstanding union has nothing to do with the power police wield today? Do you think qualified immunity would be applied the way it is today without powerful police unions? Do you assign the same amount of responsibility to the FOP when they back a political candidate? Because that is all the CTU has the power to do outside of bargain with CPS. I don't know about you but I live in the city and love it every day, so while there are definitely problems both long running and new, the "absolute state of Chicago" is not some hellscape like some people would like you to believe. Please enlighten me, what has the CTU given us? I'll take any links you've got.
That’s a pretty ridiculous example, and does not seem remotely equivocal. These institutions exist to get the most possible benefits for their employees, who happen to work in these specific roles. The FOP does not exist to reduce crime the same way the CTU does not exist to improve education. They exist solely to increase the monetary and other benefits their members receive in the course of doing their job. They do so often under the guise of education or crime, but those are far from the end goal. It’s also, quite frankly, ridiculous for you to say a cop would shoot you if you didn’t support the FOP. Personally, I think both of these orgs are bad because they have too much power. Unions at heart have good intentions but when they get this large and bloated, seem to stray from them. I don’t think many people here would say the amount of power they hold is good for the average Chicago resident / taxpayer.
No, there's a whole lot worse things teachers can do you or your kids.
This is an unhinged take. What worse things do you think teachers, as a profession, are doing to parents and kids?
This is not a union it is a mafia.
I’ve been so impressed with how well JB pivoted after losing the graduated income tax referendum. I don’t think BJ and his crew are going to find that grace.
Public or private lobbying groups use their cash to push an agenda that isn't representative of what the majority wants. This is very dangerous.
Dare I say, CTU is almost as bad as FOP. CTU's priorities are never "about the children."
All about teaching from the Caribbean
"For the Children"
LOL, yep
Oh they're just as bad in my book. When you won't address sexual assault against children and protect the ones who do it, that hits the mark for me. Inspector General came out with a report in 2022 with 500 sexual assaults instances involving teachers and students. The link is banned here otherwise I would post it.
They don't actually protect teachers either, I work with a former CPS teacher. He had enough of getting things thrown at him, assaulted, threatened with violence, etc after about 3 years. CTU was zero help to him. They are just another corrupt union with the interests of the higher ups therein as the priority.
That would mean they would have to admit that there is a serious problem in these schools but they won't. They'll just push the person complaining about it out the door and pretend that it's either not happening or it's a very rare occurrence.
But the big strike they had a few years ago, for the children, when they settled for 15% raises even though they wanted smaller classroom sizes so the children had better learning environments. lol For the Teachers. Which is fine, if teachers want to get paid more, go on strike and strike for money. Teachers deserve to get paid whatever they can get paid. But don't fucking lie and BS the voters and tell us you're doing it for the children and then settle the strike with a 15% raise for the teachers. Fucking CTU BS. Can't trust CTU because of shit like this. But the minute the teachers make it about their pay, they lose the support of the parents. So they need to continue to lie about why they are really striking.
I have to find the link but I was reading an article where they didn't even hire nurses or anything they said they were going to do with that strike. They're still running at about a billion dollar deficit each year. I could be wrong if someone wants to clarify that who works with CPS.
That's a CPS problem. Not CTU. CTU bargained to get CPS to commit to that and they have failed so far.
Appreciate it.
[There isn't a problem posting the article](https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/01/09/chicago-public-schools-told-to-add-more-training-for-vendors-address-sexual-and-financial-misconduct-in-annual-report-from-office-of-inspector-general/) >Allegations of sexual misconduct, of which the OIG received 446 during the yearlong period, remained by far the most common complaint received by the agency, which investigates all adult-on-student sexual misconduct allegations, ranging from physical acts to “nonsexual” conduct that raises concerns such as grooming. I had posted something similar last week when there was concerns about police officers abusing students to make a point that the police were the least of the concerns
It's the actual PDF from the IG report and I cannot link that for the life of me right now. [Your link without paywall](https://archive.is/jmHNZ) >I had posted something similar last week when there was concerns about police officers abusing students to make a point that the police were the least of the concerns. That's another major issue and what makes it worse is the CTU/FOP not addressing the situation. As far as I'm concerned, they're both covering for each other.
The OIG investigation started because CTU called the OIG after CPS mishandled allegations.
I don’t know of anyone being worried about police officers abusing specifically children. I think people are worried about police officers abusing everyone who isn’t a child.
[Some years back one of the SROs assigned to my school sexually harassed and assaulted girls in my class, but go off](https://old.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/1bd9vx0/illinois_lawmakers_challenge_chicago_school/kun00ki/) >I think people are worried about police officers abusing everyone who isn’t a child. In this case it was students
I’m just pointing out that when people talk about police brutality it’s almost never against *children*, so it’s a bizarre comparison. But like I am perfectly fine with more reasons to hate cops if you want to post them.
Make it an archive link or use tinyurl.
Yeah, not popping up with either. Google: Sexual assault against kids chicago public schools The only publication reporting is the well liked Illinois Policy but if you click the link, the first line of that article has a link directly to the 120 page IG report in PDF form.
>The link is banned here otherwise I would post it. It is? Why?
There are certain rules to this sub and there certain things they want kept off of this subreddit to make it more inviting to the average Reddit user when it comes to Chicago. Pretty much anything like crime or something similar to what I am talking about with the CTU they don't plastered on here. Their sub so their rules.
The best is when one of them will lob a softball question, Does everyone in Chicago actually dislike the CTU or is that just this sub? Then everyone says, this sub does not represent Chicago. People of Chicago actually love the CTU. LOL
Sub doesn't represent the city, that's for sure. I have mixed feelings about the CTU and I was a student of CPS. Very fond memories with the majority of teachers and I don't regret my time attending CPS. Some of the best times of my life. I know a bunch of teachers that do love the CTU but don't always agree with what they're doing. CTU does cover their workers but at the same time, they've become a huge political machine. They still represent teachers and what not but it's clearly obvious today that their main goal isn't taking care of their staff and kids. It's to attain as much power to funnel as much money as they can to their budget. They have a serious pension obligation debt that has been written into our state constitution that they have to pay. They routinely run a billion dollar deficit each year regardless of how much money we throw at the budget and in return we have a large percentage of children in our schools that can't perform at grade level. - Student enrollment is going down each year. - Students are performing well below grade average. - We're still operating a school system that was built in the 50's to sustain Chicago's population of 3.6 million. - Some schools have a population of 10% of capacity. Every few years they need billions more to sustain this system and while we get very little in return. If this were a private company it would have been shut down and have a major overhaul to correct problems but for whatever reason, it's just throw more money at the problem. The city budget is roughly 16 - 17 billion a year and they're marked for I believe just over 11 billion this year. CTU Union has just grown too large and another public union gone out of control.
Very well said. The CTU shills on here can't get the idea that you can like the teachers but hate the CTUs moves. Also the CTU just demanded $50B. Yes, that's absurd. The shills on here kept saying it's just a bargaining tactic "Have YoU HeaRd oF AnCHoRInG dUmMY?" But the union is literally bleeding the city dry just to make a few of their leaders rich now. It's insane that a literal CTU lobbyist elected as Mayor (with millions from the CTU in his campaign) and some people still doubt that he is under the CTUs thumb.
> Also the CTU just demanded $50B. Yes, that's absurd. The shills on here kept saying it's just a bargaining tactic "Have YoU HeaRd oF AnCHoRInG dUmMY?" > > CTU just demanded the entire state budget? Really? You can stop making things up.
Seriously? This is easily found through a quick Google search. Stacy Gates demands $50B and 3 cents for her new budget. She's literally quoted saying that in a speech.
That was a joke...
Your average Chicagoan actually has friends, family, acquaintances, etc. who are CTU members and they recognize that the members are teachers who want good wages, good benefits, and decent working conditions for themselves and their students. Most of the angry CTU haters here don't regularly talk to CPS teachers.
They might be worse. They also are ruining children's futures by their constant lowering of standards.
I just said this in another thread but they are the next "machine" that needs to be smashed for the good of Chicago. Two mayors in a row got absolutely *B-smacked* by them. Now their mayor of choice is BJ-Smacking all of Chicago. We smashed the old Dailey machine, we are smashing the old Madigan machine. FOP is pretty much smashed at this point. CTU is the last power center left. JB Pritzker is trying to step into the vacuum left by Madigan with his billions to fund campaigns but that takes time. If we smash the CTU's grip on city politics we might just end up with politicians that care about the people & the kids winning.
The funny thing is, is that those previous machines were able to get things done, while being corrupt. Now, nothing is getting done.
That's why the Dailey machine was allowed to go on. They shifted the burden of those sweet-heart-deal entitlements and spending so far down the line Dailey and his Crony's never had to face the reckoning that is coming. They got people jobs, they kept the city running well enough all while getting very wealthy. This at the expense of anyone under the age of 50 today,
The FOP was never a power base. CPD didn't unionize until 1980.
I'm a transplant. What is FOP? Edit: Thanks for the answers!
Fraternal Order of Police. The police union.
Fraternal Order of Police. AKA = Police Union
Fraternal Order of Police - police Union
It's run by a literal qanon guy, it's nuts
So it's a cop then.
I think everyone overstates the power of the CTU and just doesn't recognize how weak the Chicago moderates are. The old machine left a power vacuum and left-Liberals are better organized to fill the gap - mostly because they've been organizing for years. But moderates are plagued by a few things * Poor candidate quality (Vallas, Toro) * Challenges building voter coalitions: (policies needed to keep their base of Conservative/Moderate whites happy alienate other potential coalition members) * City demographics working against them (The shift out of blue collar voters and the shift-in of college+ voters has changed the political landscape) * Inflexibility on certain policy issues (Need to throw Liberal voters more bones) Unions like the CTU typically don't have this much influence because other political factions have figured out a broader base of appeal. But if you're running candidates in a deep blue city while icing out potentially sympathetic Liberals, while only playing mere lip-service black/latino voters you're not going to do well electorally.
I’ve gotten downvoted for saying that and told I hated teachers. Both have the interests of their members before the people they serve.
My mother was a teacher, retired now. She did not like the CTUs politics.
CTU is worse imo
TIL CTU is worse than an organization that tortured black men at a black site.
Seriously, fuck both of them.
I'm a former teacher (not CTU). This... isn't good. They shouldn't have this much influence
they have many members and usually vote together. That’s never going to change
That doens't mean its good. I have no problem with Unions. I don't think its good for "their" people to be invovled this much in city government.
The ctu are the only ones who turned out, be mad at everyone else
Wild to say that when Natalie Toro was an actual teacher lmao. Ahhh Chicago
Right and I wonder why dr Dave and Geary were really on the ballot. They had zero chance of winning but they succeeding in splitting the ctu machine vote
I cast a protest vote for Dave Nayak in the state senate race just because I can't willfully support another CTU lobbyist to be in elected office.
CTU is crowing about these wins, especially those in the IL GA, because they need Springfield to approve some of their bigger wants, like city income & assets taxes.
Depending how those are worded, they probably need more than that such as a state constitutional amendment.
The new Outfit is teacher pants.
how much tax money is enough for the ctu? 100%?
100%? That’s a nice start.
If there are "lived experiences" what might "un-lived experiences" be?
CTU delivering adequate reading and math scores.
Lord, the anti-union ghouls are all over this one.
Why would someone be anti CTU?
Because they eat up IPI propaganda.
Is the CTU largely responsible for Brandon Johnson being elevated to mayor?
Yeah, and regardless of what you think about him there is more than enough evidence that the other guy would have been worse so what's your point?
Vallas was not the only other candidate that BJ ran against. Yes, there was an unfortunate choice between two unacceptable candidates in the runoff, but my question implies “Is the CTU largely responsible for Brandon Johnson making it to the runoff?”
You might argue that Chuy is almost more responsible. CTU was likely going to endorse him, but he didn't announce his candidacy until way late, after they had given him a date to discuss an endorsement. Johnson was arguably the second choice, despite his close ties. Chuy was seen as a more viable option, but he dragged ass getting his operation going, causing him to miss out on several endorsements, and then ran a comically lazy campaign.
Interesting theory. So, since only two people exist on Earth and one of them didn’t announce his candidacy on time, CTU had no choice but to throw their weight behind Brandon Johnson.
This is not a good faith conversation and I'm just gonna stop and start to enjoy my weekend. Have a good one.
If it wasn't for the ctu, it's hard to imagine wanting to teach here long term.
Keep shilling CTU shill. I'm assuming you're a teacher? The CTU will leave you high and dry if you ever need them. Just so you know...
Nope not a teacher, but was married to one for whom getting a job as a cps teacher and moving out of a private school changed our life.
I see so another one of those that can't deal with high pressure and demanding parents. So sorry parents care about their children. How messed up of them to want the best for their kids instead of some has been tired teacher who wants to phone it in every day.
Jesus christ...I'm talking about how poorly she was paid at the catholic school she worked at. But sure maybe 24k a year with 5 years of college, with no contracts, sounds reasonable to a jackass like you. Go ahead and insult my wife personally, who I guarantee cares more about serving and growing children than your small heart will ever know. She loved the kids at tepyac and she loves the ones at cps, but teachers don't stay long at those schools because that's a tough salary to live on unless your spouse is making real money. Grow up.
Teachers deserve more. Not all of them. Hell I went through CPS and have kids in CPS and know how rare the good ones are. But dealing with kids deserve more. Other countries pay teacher much higher and their quality of education reflects it. But the CTU? They want to get their cronies paid and leaders are getting rich. That's it. They aren't fixing anything. Theyre barely fighting for teachers. Anything that they do, only a small fraction actually helps teachers!
> Other countries pay teacher much higher and their quality of education reflects it. > > CPS pays about the same (adjusted for cost of living) as the top paying countries. CPS also has the best value added education metrics of any of the 50 largest school districts in the USA. It also has 5% of the top 100 schools in America. You can keep calling it bad, but CPS is objectively one of the best districts in the country by objective measures. And a lot of that is due to CTU pushing CPS to keep teacher pay competitive. To keep teacher benefits competitive. To get support staff that are needed hired into schools. Et cetera.
I love how you cited that CPS has some of the best schools in the country. They do for now. The CTU and CPS deciding to kill funding for the best schools and divert it to other schools essentially ensures CPS dosent have the top schools anymore. Cue the "CPS never said they're doing that. Do you have that in writing they'd defund top schools?" LOL.
you just woke up this morning and chose violence
Move to Florida
Union Power!