Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Wednesday her negotiating team has made a “robust and fair” offer to the Chicago Teacher Union that calls for rank-and-file teachers to receive a 14 percent pay raise over five years at a cost of $300 million.
The 2.8 percent-a-year offer is just over half of what the CTU has demanded. The union has also demanded: more generous benefits; librarians and nurses at every school; more special education and bilingual support; reduced class sizes and a counselor for every 250 students.
But Lightfoot portrayed it as a generous offer that merits serious consideration by a union that was one of vanquished mayoral challenger Toni Preckwinkle’s biggest and most powerful supporters.
“It’s over $300 million. A five-year contract. Over the life of the contract, it would represent a 14 percent increase. That’s a pretty good offer,” the mayor told reporters at an unrelated news conference near Navy Pier.
“I hope that they will come to us with a serious evaluation of that and embrace the reality that there’s no reason why we can’t get a deal done well in advance of the time school starts.”
Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel used one-time revenues to stave off a second teachers strike on his watch.
CTU President Jesse Sharkey and the union’s vice-president Stacy Davis Gates could not be reached for comment on the contract offer.
On Wednesday, Lightfoot was asked how beleaguered Chicago taxpayers could afford a $300 million offer.
She pointed to the historic re-write of the school funding formula and to the Illinois General Assembly’s decision to give the Chicago Public Schools a $450 million cash infusion and bankroll teacher pensions going forward.
“The General Assembly actually acted to improve the funding formula for school districts across the state. That’s the money and resources that we are depending upon to provide the contract,” she said.
“So, we feel very good about the offer. It’s important that people recognize that we’ve been actively engage with the CTU really since January of this year. We’ve had 23 separate bargaining negotiations.”
Earlier this week, the CTU did a bit of saber-rattling on the contract issue to turn up the heat on the new mayor to come forward with her contract offer.
Sharkey complained that Lightfoot’s negotiators — the same team used by Emanuel — had yet to submit a contract proposal despite more than six months of bargaining.
And he warned that his were prepared to walk off the job if provoked.
“We’re being studied. We’re not being engaged. And that’s got to stop,” Sharkey told a news conference at CTU headquarters one day after the four-year contract expired.
Lightfoot is known for having a long memory. She has openly acknowledged that “all is not forgotten” or forgiven politically when it comes to the CTU’s support for Preckwinkle.
But she has also said she is determined to hammer out a new contract that’s fair to Chicago teachers and improves support services to neighborhood schools before the start of the new school year.
“The last four years, we’ve been screwed under the contract,” Sharkey said. The CTU has advised members to save money in preparation for a strike.
In 2012, Emanuel’s bullying missteps provoked a seven-day strike that was Chicago’s first in 25 years. Four years later, he avoided another strike, only after using an $87.5 million tax-increment-financing surplus that the mayor’s own City Council floor leader acknowledged was “not sustainable.”
Lightfoot has jokingly promised not to “lead with my middle finger” when it comes to dealing with the CTU. She promises to be “fair” to teachers and “keep the progress that’s been made at CPS going forward.”
“I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure we get those contract talks concluded before school starts in the fall,” she has said.
Asked on the eve of the election about the likelihood of another teachers strike, Lightfoot has said, “Not on my watch.”
