5 ways state law empowers the Chicago Teachers Union and how it can change

The union's extraordinary power in Chicago is propped up by actions in Springfield.

The Chicago Teachers Union is widely regarded as one of the most powerful teachers’ unions in the country because of massive political spending, militant activism and its adopted model of progressive political organizing.

The union’s success is rooted in its deep political involvement, influencing elections, state and local policy to a level that sets it apart from local teachers’ unions across the nation.

CTU’s power is not discretionary; it is legally guaranteed. The union’s authority is grounded in Illinois statute, reinforced by administrative precedent, and further expanded by broad constitutional language.

Here are five ways CTU’s behavior is empowered through the state’s statutes and constitution:

1) CTU is the exclusive voice for teachers

The union effectively holds a monopoly on CPS teacher representation as the sole bargaining agent.

No current Chicago teachers were employed when CTU was chosen to represent them, and therefore had no choice in their union representation.

Illinois’ labor laws make it so that once a workforce selects a government union, the selection is essentially permanent, leaving new employees stuck with a union choice made decades before they were hired.

The Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act guarantees educational employees the power to organize, bargain and engage in lawful concerted activities. The act names the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board as the authority to designate the union selected by a majority of employees as the “exclusive representative.”

That means Chicago Public Schools may not negotiate separately with teachers, CPS must bargain in good faith with CTU, and refusal to bargain in good faith is constituted as an unfair labor practice.

2) Chicago teachers have more bargaining powers

CTU’s expansive bargaining scope comes from the IELRA’s broad, general language, which resulted from Gov. J.B. Pritzker signing House Bill 2275 and repealing the section limiting the subjects over which CTU could negotiate.

With the elimination of restrictions, CTU can demand that CPS bargain over staffing levels, schedules, working conditions, class-size limits, and evaluation protocols, among other provisions. The broad language allows CTU to push for anything related to “terms and conditions of employment.”

If the union’s collective bargaining powers were not broad enough, the “Workers’ Rights Amendment” passed in 2022, also known as Amendment 1, goes farther than any other state constitution in the nation. This amendment allows bargaining over virtually everything, beyond the typical wages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment.

It means the collective bargaining agreements between CTU and CPS go beyond usual wages and benefits negotiations. Now they include class-size caps, special programs, class preparation time, calendar language and staffing commitments among other topics.

Here are some things CTU has demanded as part of their contract with the district, rather than through legislation passed by democratically elected representatives:

• A nurse in every school, when only 39% of schools across the nation employ school nurses full-time.
• Creating 10,000 new housing units, prioritizing CPS students and families, with no explicit designation for homeless students over other residents.
• Expanding sustainable community school programs, which provide additional funding of approximately $400,000 to $500,000 to participating schools, but have yet to provide better student outcomes
• An all-electric school bus fleet costing $400,000 per bus. among other “climate justice” demands.
• Up to eight weeks of paid surrogacy leave for recovery, so a teacher gets both a contract-mandated salary during leave and an average $64,500 salary under the surrogacy contract in the city of Chicago.

CTU’s expansive powers under state law and Amendment 1 effectively give the union a broader scope of bargaining than government unions in any other state are allowed. The law enables labor negotiations as a tool for policy advocacy and to avoid the typical democratic process.

3) CTU strikes are lawful

Among the 10 largest school districts in the country, teacher strikes are illegal in eight, except for CPS and the Los Angeles Unified School District. However, there is no statutory allowance for strikes in California, and strikes have occurred only on a case-by-case basis.

Chicago teacher strikes, on the other hand, are sanctioned by state law.

State law allows teacher strikes if they meet a few requirements:

• Represented by an exclusive bargaining representative
• Failed mediation
• At least a 10-day strike notice by the exclusive bargaining representative to the educational employer, the regional superintendent, and the IELRB
• Collective bargaining agreement expiration
• The employer and the exclusive bargaining representative have not mutually submitted the unresolved issues to arbitration

Strike authority is CTU’s strongest enforcement mechanism, used to force concessions on nontraditional bargaining subjects.

In the last 14 years, teachers have walked out on students five times, harming taxpayers and their families. Who stands to gain more than CTU?

State law protects the union’s power to strike, so CTU faces minimal legal risk in engaging in strikes, since teachers cannot be fired for participating in legal strikes.

Their strikes create immense political pressure citywide: parents lose access to childcare, students are left without instruction and media attention on the strike runs rampant, forcing political leaders to respond. As a result, CPS is not the sole party to bear strike costs. Students and their families bear the brunt of the strike activity.

CTU knows CPS is in no position to wait out a strike without negative public opinion or harm coming to children’s education, nor can it afford to permanently replace teachers. The union can sustain a strike much longer than CPS can tolerate, so time favors CTU, which trades short-term costs for long-term contractual gains.

For this reason, CTU negotiates with both CPS management and the city’s political leadership, who often pressure CPS to settle quickly with the union to end the disruption as soon as possible.

4) CTU contracts can override state and local law

Even before Amendment 1 passed, some Illinois government unions could overrule state and local laws if there is a contradiction.

The Illinois Public Labor Relations Act says any collective bargaining agreement negotiated under the Act will “prevail and control” when there is conflict with any other law.

This same power to override law is extended to education unions through Amendment 1.

Amendment 1 bans lawmakers from passing laws to diminish said rights, making it impossible to restrict union actions. Thus, the amendment grants government unions access to override state and local laws without restriction.

The Illinois Policy Institute found Illinois is the only state to grant government unions the power to override state and local laws through a collective bargaining agreement without limitation. In fact, it is more common to see the opposite, considering 14 states explicitly prohibit conflicts between union contracts and state laws.

Union contracts can override more than 350 provisions, including those related to school operations, which could ultimately threaten safeguards for students.

Under Amendment 1, local union leaders could go so far as to set the school curriculum, refuse to teach specific subjects, or even demand that students be vaccinated against certain diseases.

CTU is therefore empowered aggresive demands to the table and go on strike to get them met, and voters would have no way to hold them accountable.

5) CTU undermines school choice and public-school funding for students

CTU has historically been opposed to school-choice initiatives, as evidenced by its opposition to the renewal of the state’s Invest in Kids tax-credit program in 2023.

But the union is also anti-public-school choice. The union’s broad powers have allowed it to handcuff charter schools through collective bargaining, using its political power to enshrine its control over them.

The legally allowed bargaining scope allows CTU to frame school choice as a labor-impact issue, arguing it could lead to reduced enrollment, increased classroom sizes and potentially trigger layoffs or reduce district funding, causing budget shortfalls for CPS.

And CTU doesn’t just want to undermine charter schools; it wants to control them. When Pritzker signed House Bill 1120, which required all charter school contract renewals and proposals to include union neutrality clauses, it allowed CTU to organize charter school staff.

The union has expressed on various occasions the threat posed by charter expansion and its aims to undermine the expansion via unionizing and merging them into CTU, evidenced by the successful unionization of more than a quarter of charter school teachers and staff, and the merger with the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff

If CTU had students’ best interests in mind, it would not be so eager to exert its influence over charter schools and parents’ ability to explore better educational avenues for their children.

What can be done?

Unfortunately, CTU’s leverage is a result of state law. Amendment 1 also prohibits interfering with the union’s “rights,” including its bargaining powers and power to strike.

To influence and change outcomes, Chicagoans’ attention needs to shift from CPS to Springfield, and they need to advocate for policies that would increase transparency in negotiations and end CTU’s exclusive representation.

Here’s how Chicagoans can even the playing field through state law:

1) Transparent negotiations

In Illinois, it is common for government unions to negotiate contracts behind closed doors. Taxpayers have no clue about the contract provisions until it is far too late to do anything about them.

If Chicago teachers truly cared about the parents and students they serve, they would build trust through transparency by putting an end to the vicious cycle of keeping negotiations and contracts hidden until finalized.

During the 2024 negotiations, CTU advocated for some open bargaining sessions. But those were more theater than real negotiating, with the public watching in person or via livestream. The subjects discussed were preselected, with each side giving a presentation, and there was no time for public comment.

Contract demands themselves should be public. Each version of the parties’ offers should be made available. This would ensure that the taxpayers funding these unions’ demands know what is being negotiated, can give feedback to their leaders, and have a seat at the table to hold those leaders accountable.

2) Require regular recertification

State law mandates exclusive representation, giving CTU the legal power to speak for Chicago teachers, including non-union members. But as the CTU example shows, no current teacher has voted for CTU as their union because that happened decades ago. Many of them weren’t even born yet.

To prevent a union from maintaining exclusive representation for decades without members having any real democratic decision power, state law should be amended to require regular recertification elections to ensure that current teachers select the union. Its impact would drastically undermine the union’s claim to unified backing and, in turn, weaken CTU’s strike legitimacy and bargaining posture.

These are just some ways in which Chicagoans can take part in the fight. Without state-level reform, CTU is bound to remain structurally empowered regardless of the officials in City Hall or sitting on the school board.