16 hours of CPS negotiations not enough to end teachers strike

A marathon bargaining session that lasted 16 hours and kept city and union officials at the table until 2 a.m. was not enough to end Chicago’s teachers strike and put the city’s 300,000 students back in school.

Frustrated and exasperated negotiators from the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union emerged from behind closed doors early Tuesday without an agreement — despite saying they would stay at the table until they struck a deal.

“The union has laid out a path to a settlement,” the CTU’s lead labor attorney, Robert Bloch, told reporters in the lobby of Malcolm X College after talks were done for the night.

“We’re waiting to hear from the city tomorrow morning. This is still an opportunity for the mayor to enter into an historic agreement to restore Chicago Public Schools to be the best that they can be,” Bloch said. “The parties have narrowed their differences. But we’re not there yet.”

Union president Jesse Sharkey and vice president Stacy Davis Gates did not address the media after negotiations ended.

Minutes after Bloch talked, CPS officials said they were “pretty frustrated” not to have landed a deal.

“It has been a marathon day,” said LaTanya McDade, the district’s chief education officer and second in command to schools chief Janice Jackson.

“I can’t say that we have not had strong conversations, but at the end of the day, the goal was to get to a deal and we’ve not reached one,” McDade said. “We will be returning tomorrow with that same hope, trying to reach an agreement that gets our students back in the classroom.”

Sam Kelly/Sun-Times

McDade said the two sides “have gotten the closest that we’ve ever been” on the two key issues of class size and staffing, and that “those issues are within reach.”

But the union and school district remain “fundamentally far apart” on the issue of teacher preparation time, she said.

When hope was still alive late Monday that a deal could get done, a flurry of activity saw the school district’s general counsel join talks for the first time and the union bring back its big bargaining team of rank-and-file members to try and hammer out an agreement to bring the 25,000 striking teachers back to work.

The union issued a press release shortly after 11 p.m. saying “the CTU bargaining team remains at the table and does not plan on leaving until they’ve managed to get a tentative agreement with CPS.”

CPS officials had earlier made a similar pledge to stay “as long as it takes” to get a deal.

The lack of an agreement by Monday afternoon had led CPS to cancel Tuesday classes, meaning the district’s 300,000 students would miss their ninth day of school and the longest teachers strike in three decades would continue.

Both sides said they were trying their hardest to get a deal done, but the frustration was reaching a boiling point as the final but important issues remain on the table.

Big bargaining team returns

The two sides started bargaining at 10 a.m. Monday and continued past 2 a.m. — though the union’s bargaining team came in Monday evening and left an hour before the union’s officers.

Sharkey and Davis Gates said that they called their big bargaining team back to negotiations to “put some pressure on CPS and the mayor to settle this tonight.”

“We want them to take this seriously,” Davis Gates said of CPS negotiators. “Come to the table with something that makes sense to move our schools forward, to give our students what they deserve, to make sure that our members are treated fairly and to make sure that we’re in school as soon as possible.”

Sharkey noted that CPS brought its general counsel, Joe Moriarty, to the table late Monday, possibly in an effort to strike a deal. Moriarty was part of negotiations in 2012 and 2016.

“They brought in one of their most experienced labor relations people who’s also their head lawyer, and we expect an offer from them,” Sharkey said, adding that the CTU was “prepared to bring our House of Delegates if there’s something on the table that shows seriousness.”

“We’re looking to get classes resumed, but right now the ball is firmly in their court, and if they can find the resources and the will, we think we can get an agreement,” Sharkey said.

Far apart on prep time, costs

Earlier in the night, CPS officials didn’t paint a promising picture.

”We have been negotiating all day and we still have many key issues on the table,” McDade said during a brief break from bargaining.

She said the two sides remained “far apart” on the key issues of teacher prep time and the overall cost of the contract.

The CTU is asking for 30 minutes in prep time at the beginning of the elementary school day for teachers to be able to grade homework, plan lessons, coordinate with other teachers and talk to parents.

Union leaders say the day can be restructured to create the prep time. CPS officials say they haven’t been able to find a way to reschedule the day to do so, and the only way to accomplish what the union wants would result in less instructional time for students — which the district refuses to allow.

Costs detailed

As for the cost of the contract, the district says its offer will cost $485 million by the fifth year of the deal. That would mean the current contract, which includes all teacher pay and costs $2.6 billion annually, would ramp up to $3.1 billion by the end of the five years.

CPS’ offer includes an additional $375 million for pay and benefits for teacher and support staff, $34 million for a full-time nurse and social worker in every school by the end of the five-year contract, $25 million to address overcrowded class sizes and $19 million for more special education case managers.

CPS has also offered $10 million for high-need schools to be able to pick between hiring a librarian or a social justice coordinator. But the union has said it doesn’t want schools in low-income communities to be forced to pick between two necessary positions. Instead, the CTU wants a librarian in every school, the same as what’s now going to happen for nurses and social workers.

Union leaders maintained Monday that the additional costs they were demanding on top of the district’s offer totaled $38 million per year. But CPS officials said the added costs would be closer to $100 million. Neither side would say why they disagree with the other’s estimate or give an accounting of their own estimates.

Union officials said their estimate is what it would cost to meet their additional staffing and class size demands.

Though both sides said they were much closer by the end of the night on those two issues, it wasn’t clear how much more money, if any, was offered to the CTU.

Contributing: Manny Ramos, Stefano Esposito