April 07--The Chicago Teachers Union's governing body has voted to cancel an election for officers due to a lack of opposition to a slate led by President Karen Lewis and Vice President Jesse Sharkey, the union said Thursday.
No opponents were able to gather the required number of signatures on nominating petitions, union officials said. So CTU delegates decided to cancel an election that would have cost approximately $300,000.
Lewis, Sharkey and recording secretary Michael Brunson will retain their positions for three-year terms beginning in July. Kristine Mayle, the leadership's fourth member and financial secretary, decided not to run for re-election and will be replaced by speech language pathologist Maria Moreno.
The slate led by Lewis was first elected to CTU's leadership in 2010, and re-elected in 2013.
Wednesday's vote by the CTU's House of Delegates came as union officials deliberated how to respond to a fact-finder's report that is due later this month. If the union and Chicago Board of Education accept the fact-finder's conclusions, those decisions would be incorporated into a new contract.
If either side rejects those findings, the fact-finder's report is released publicly and teachers can move to strike after a monthlong waiting period. That process would finish close to the end of the school year, as students are finishing courses or preparing to graduate.
In December, the union announced that 88 percent of its members agreed to authorize union leaders to call a strike. That's well above the 75 percent necessary under state law for a strike to occur.
Chicago Public Schools asked a state board controlled by Gov. Bruce Rauner, a union opponent, to invalidate the strike authorization vote. The union's three-day voting process was "inherently flawed," school system attorneys argued to the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board in December. CPS also asserted the union could not vote on a strike until contract talks concluded.
"A vote taken prior to conclusion of mediation, prior to issuance of the fact-finder's report, prior to exchange of comprehensive proposals is indicative of nothing," school system attorney James Franczek wrote in a memo to the labor board this past winter.
"Nothing in 20 years' worth of legislative tinkering with the impasse resolution process applicable to CPS supports a conclusion that the General Assembly merely wanted some generalized expression of employee support for its union leadership at some point in the process."
The union still carried out what amounted to a one-day strike last week, citing federal case law but inviting a legal challenge from CPS.
jjperez@tribpub.com
