As you heard from CTU today, our opponents filed a lawsuit asking a Cook County Judge to stall our upcoming election on May 20th. Worse, they are threatening the very fabric of our rank-and-file democracy and decision making - the latest in a long string of attempts to weaken our union and power after losing an argument. 

Over Spring Break, our opponents in the upcoming Chicago Teachers Union election sued our union to overturn a democratic decision made in our Rules and Elections Committee after losing the vote. Our election is under attack and our union is now on the hook for legal costs that could double the cost of the election, costing us over $280k.

Earlier in this election cycle, our opposition was caught accepting support from high ranking members of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s political organization and now they want to stall the election and keep candidates off the ballot. Their unprincipled decision to sue our union means they are literally using the tools of the boss to dilute our power. This is reckless, costly, undemocratic and unethical. 

Please contribute $10, $15, or $20 to help CORE continue to lead a movement that fights for every member and student in every single school community. 

When CORE took leadership of our union, we walked into a financial mess. Our union was on the brink of trusteeship. We were in a costly lease agreement at the Merchandise Mart. And, we only had one functioning department—the grievance department.

Under the Lewis and Sharkey led CORE leadership, we’ve purchased our own building—The CTU CENTER—a space that helps anchor progressive politics in Chicago.

We’ve built a diversified and robust union with research, organizing, communications, and political departments to help our union weather the financial impact of the racist privatization and education reform movement, school closings, and pension attacks.

We are an organizing union that led the first ever strikes on charter bosses to win unprecedented resources and support for students, and stronger contracts and health benefits for our members.

Please contribute $10, $15, or $20 to help CORE continue to lead a movement that fights for every member and student in every single school community.

We need resources to prevent our opponents from stalling progress and threatening our democracy. We must push back against their attempts to take us backwards and your donation helps us talk to more members about the threats our union is facing and make sure they’re ready to vote on May 20th.

Please contribute $10, $15, or $20 to help CORE continue to lead a movement that fights for every member and student in every single school community. 

We’ll see you on Monday, April 18th at 4:30 pm for our monthly meeting where we’ll be talking more about the fight to protect our union and all that we’ve built. We’ve proven when we work together we can withstand the attacks on our school communities and union. Let’s go win this for our schools and our students.