Fwd: Chicago Teachers Union Whacks Second City Teachers with Resolution to Stop Delegate Reporting
Norm Scott
From: Second City Teachers <secondcit...@substack.com>
Date: Sat, Dec 9, 2023 at 9:49 AM
Subject: Chicago Teachers Union Whacks Second City Teachers with Resolution to Stop Delegate Reporting
To: <nor...@gmail.com>
The Chicago Teachers Union made another move to silence its critics after the House of Delegates voted in favor of the “Resolution to Maintain the Integrity of the CTU House of Delegates Meetings.” They silenced me, Jim Vail, the editor of The Second City Teachers, who had been reporting on House of Delegates meetings for many years. These are different times one of the architects of the Resolution told me. Cracking down on the free press is a sign that the fight for power puts you either with or against the party in power. What led to this Orwellian motion was when I was riding home the other week I received a call from Thaddeus Goodchild, the CTU Deputy General Counsel. He asked me to stop reporting on HOD meetings because my ‘blog’ is being picked up by right wing groups such as Wirepoints. I said that I have been reporting on Delegates Meetings going back to the days of Substance News which started reporting on behalf of teachers and Chicago Public Schools in 1975. “We have been reporting on Delegates meetings at Substance News and this helped elect our current leadership,” I told CTU President Stacy Davis-Gates who presented the motion before a rigorous debate. “We have a great leadership here but they need to be held accountable like any group in power.” The biggest accusation against me that I take full blame/credit for was the term ‘doxing.’ According to Google, doxing is a form of cyberbullying that uses senstive or secret information, statements, or records for the harassment, exposure, financial harm or exploitation of targeted individuals. A few teachers complained about this and one delegate said she was pulled into a meeting with her principal on account of a story I wrote about the delegates meeting. This was the first time I heard people complain that their names were being used in public. I apologized and said I certainly did not want this to happen. When I reported on Charter School corruption for Substance News, a few teachers I had interviewed called me later to ask me to take down the story because of the Internet, and I had to make sure our fearless editor George Schmidt, who passed away in 2018, removed the story. We report on behalf of teachers, not against them. So I have no problem removing names. This city seriously lacks any type of serious reporting outside the influence of big money interests. That is probably why my Substack newsletter is generating more and more subscribers. I’m just the latest to fall. Field Reps John Kugler and Joey McDermott were fired from their positions at the Chicago Teachers Union for crossing a rather, at times, thin-skinned president who does not take criticism lightly. She has blown up in public and in private against her critics. Despite their stellar performances as field reps and being loved by so many teachers, both Kugler and McDermott fell for calling out politicial shenanagans. Both were represented by the Teamsters Union. Lindblom Delegate Drew Heiserman, another early CORE supporter who ran afoul of the leadership team, was berated when he too dare criticized the party and its actions during a pension election. He was purged from the party for blowing the whistle on another CORE Union Employee for making campaign phone calls. Dirty politics is how the game is played. It is not only the CTU who whacks its critics. Mayor Richard Daley and the Chicago Board of Education fired and sued Substance Editor George Schmidt for $1 million because he published the Case Exam, citing copy right. He was blacklisted from teaching for showing how poorly designed the standardized tests are. They removed the test, but George never got another teaching job (though he still published Substance). Then the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund President Jeffery Blackwell went to war against his three detractors on the Pension Board when he censored three Trustees and reprimanded a fourth. I noticed after closely following the CTPF meetings that those three minority female trustees censored were the ones who asked questions and challenged the leadership that otherwise found little debate amongst the other Trustees. Journalists are no different than soldiers when it comes to fighting a war. Reporters get killed in many countries for reporting the ugly truth about power, while here they either fire and blacklist you, or as in my case, publically shame you in front of everybody tying you to the right wing conspiracy crowd. Veteran investigative journalist Sy Hersh said his independent reporting on US foreign policy and their wars is likewise being tied to the right wing just because the Democrats do not like his criticism. The CTU got their former organizer Brandon Johnson elected Mayor of the City of Chicago. This punctuates their ascendency to political power within this system that is tied to the Democratic Party. Many believe their political ambitions won’t stop there. Certainly their heart is in the right place to fix things for the people. But a free responsible press is necessary to hold them accountable. Former CTU President Jesse Sharkey spoke in favor of the resolution by recalling when a delegate was secretly sending notes about the delegates meetings to the CPS Labor Relations Chief. I turned to Jesse as he exited after his speech and said Marc Wiggler, former UPC union staffer. He nodded. So I guess I’ve been compared to a traitor by Jesse. I maintained my position at the mic that I am against any right-wing attacks on our union and call out the corporate media, the Chicago Civic Federation and other business lobbyists and right-wing groups such as the Illinois Policy Institute. This public shaming reminded me what it would have been like for the Hollywood writers who were outed as communists and traitors to their country during the McCarthy scare. As one U.S. general told a reporter who asked a critical question during the horrific Korean War, “Who’s side are you on?” I thought George Milkowski who reports out the Delegates Meetings to retired teachers summed up the meeting nicely: “‘Resolution to Maintain the Integrity of the CTU House of Delegates Meetings.’ This was the most contentious item on the agenda at this meeting. One delegate has a blog on which he put out information in detail about House meetings. The Union leadership asserts some of this information has been used by Right Wing individuals who have used it as a source to justify their anti-union positions. Also, some comments by delegates that are critical of their principals and other administrators have gotten back to their bosses and have caused problems for those delegates. Delegates defending the Resolution maintain that there is no problem with delegates reporting back to their members about meetings but discussions and disagreements within the House need to be kept in the House. Those opposed pointed out that this is a free speech issue. Lou Pyster argued that this Resolution does not protect delegates as much as it helps to contain criticism of the leadership and policies of the CTU. Also, the Resolution refers specifically to delegates but does not mention members of the Executive Board nor visitors who are also in House meetings. The delegate with the blog said he reached out to the CTU legal staff, asking for examples of the alleged use of his materials by the Right Wing but never heard from them. He also said he has been doing this for years and even decades but now it is a problem. (NOTE: years ago Substance {remember that} would use cassette tapes to record House meetings in their entirety and then re-produce them verbatim).
“Thank you for reporting on our union for so long, and for standing up for yourself up there,” wrote one old-time delegate friend. “There is the question of "why now?" Another long-time CTU observer said this would never have happened under UPC President Marilyn Stewart. But as was said earlier, these are different times indeed. I will abide by the delegates resolution and end my reporting on House of Delegates meetings. While I certainly wanted to focus on informing our teachers about these meetings, and that is why I would post them on the FB Chicago teachers page, the CTU leaders certainly have a point that the enemy is real. The dark forces of Rahm Emanuel and Richard Daley and Bruce Rauner hell bent to destroy public education on behalf of the billionaires has been temporarily halted by the very leaders we elected and many of us activists worked hard to campaign for. So good night from the Halls of the House of Delegates. It’s been a pleasure to serve you on this front. I do hope more teachers will question the leadership in this unjust system. Teaching the students to think critically means we must practice what we preach. RESOLUTION TO MAINTAIN THE INTEGRITY OF THE CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION HOUSE OF DELEGATES MEETINGS WHEREAS the House of Delegates (HOD) is the supreme elected body of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), which deliberates upon and sets policy for the members of the Chicago Teachers Union, and WHEREAS deliberation by the CTU House of Delegates involves consideration of sensitive, strategic and confidential information pertaining to its internal discussions, strategies for serving and protecting the Union’s membership, and addressing local, state and national leadership on issues of concern to the Union’s membership, and WHEREAS delegates elected to serve in the CTU House of Delegates are responsible for informing those school or functional division members who elected the delegate(s) regarding actions by the House of Delegates, and WHEREAS the sensitive, strategic and confidential deliberations by members of the CTU House of Delegates are not intended to, nor should they permissibly be, shared generally with the public, and WHEREAS disclosure to the general public of House of Delegate deliberations does not serve the Union’s institutional interests, but rather, can cause harm to the Union by, among other things, disclosure of delegates’ personal information, views on sensitive issues, and consideration of tactical positions, and WHEREAS the proper and Constitutional role of elected delegates is to serve and inform only the membership of the Chicago Teachers Union, therefore be it RESOLVED the delegates shall not disseminate report to the general public, online or otherwise, details of the occurrences at any meeting of the CTU House of Delegates. This restriction in no way limits a delegate’s duty and responsibility to inform those Chicago Teachers Union members who the delegate represents as to these matters (Article 10); or to publicly discuss official resolutions duly approved by the House. The Executive Board and House of Delegates of the CTU are already empowered to activate constitutional protections for the union, including but not limited to the ability to review, confront or expel anyone from the House for said violations (Article 14). _________________________________________________________________ You're currently a free subscriber to Second City Teachers. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
© 2023 Jim Vail
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Norm Scott
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