Support staff at Chicago schools inch closer to strike

Already in the midst of heated contract negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union, Mayor Lori Lightfoot has another issue on her hands.

Support workers at Chicago Public Schools are threatening to strike if Lightfoot doesn’t meet their contract demands, setting up yet another potential mid-October work stoppage at CPS.

The latest employees threatening to walk out are members of Service Employees International Union Local 73, which represents more than 7,000 special education classroom assistants, bus aides, security guards and custodians.

The group voted in July to authorize a strike and on Monday rejected an independent fact-finder’s report that generally sided with CPS’ stance on various proposals.

”We expect Mayor Lightfoot and the Chicago Board of Education to return to the negotiating table with the serious intent of resolving outstanding differences rather than ... marginalizing the important work that our members do to make our schools safe, clean learning environments, especially for our most vulnerable special education students,” Dian Palmer, president of SEIU Local 37, said in a statement.

CPS accepted the report, which agreed with the district’s proposal of a 16% pay raise over five years — the same deal offered to the CTU.

“SEIU Local 73 members are essential to the success of our schools, and CPS is committed to reaching a contract that rewards them for their service and supports the record breaking success our schools have made,” CPS spokesman Michael Passman said in a statement. “We are in active discussions with Local 73 to reach a strong contract, and there is no reason we cannot quickly come to an agreement that fairly rewards our staff members and supports the progress our schools have made.”

The workers are still looking for bigger raises, better benefits, better schedules and professional development.

Some bus aides, the union said, work split schedules that start at 5:30 a.m. and end at 5:30 p.m. with a few hours break in between. Those workers are only paid for a few hours in the morning and another few in the afternoon, leaving them needing to work other jobs to earn a living wage, the union said.

“We’re tired of living paycheck to paycheck while we do the essential and hard work of making sure Chicago’s students have a bright future ahead of them,” a bus aide, Norma Price, said in a statement from the union. “We want to do our jobs well and make sure our students succeed, but when we are living paycheck to paycheck, we can barely pay our rent.”

The union can strike as early as Oct. 17 if an agreement isn’t reached.