CTU and CPS have potential deal; union committee to review Monday, sources say

Leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Public Schools have reached a potential agreement that will go to a union committee for approval on Monday, sources close to negotiations said Friday.

A settlement had been within reach for a couple weeks, and a final few days of talks this week — including a late-night session on Wednesday — helped the two sides reach the finish line. If the latest terms are approved, this will bring to an end almost a year of tense negotiations in which the union went to battle with the schools CEO despite having a friendly mayor in office.

CTU leaders plan to take the proposed package on Monday afternoon to their “big bargaining team” — a group of a couple dozen educators who have helped negotiate the contract — for consideration. That team will decide whether to approve a tentative agreement with CPS and recommend the package to the union’s 730-member House of Delegates. A final ratification vote by the CTU’s 30,000 members would then seal the deal.

CPS and CTU officials didn’t immediately comment.

The union ultimately decided to accept the salary offer put forward in the summer of 4% cost-of-living increases in each of the four years of the contract. The CTU also pushed to add upwards of 7,000 more staff members, but became satisfied weeks ago when it won a couple thousand more positions — especially with CPS facing budget deficits in the years ahead. Perhaps the union’s most notable staffing win was a promise to hire 30 librarians in each of the next three years in a district that currently has fewer than 100 for more than 600 schools.

The CTU also pushed in the waning weeks of negotiations for additional pay increases for veteran teachers, who, unlike less experienced teachers, have to go years without getting increases based on experience, called steps. CPS eventually agreed to give veteran teachers more regular pay increases.

And the union secured an increase in the number of teaching assistants as well as job protections for them. The CTU dropped a related demand that its sister union SEIU Local 73 had alleged would diminish its ranks.

In the end, the biggest obstacles to a deal in these negotiations that have gone on for nearly a year have been more ideological than about money. For months, the union has struggled to find common ground with CPS officials over giving elementary school teachers more planning time, and giving teachers who received average reviews three years between performance evaluations — two issues that are not primarily economic, but that teachers care deeply about.

This would be the first time the CTU has landed a contract without a strike vote in the 15 years under the union’s current leadership. Teachers went on strike in 2012 and 2019 and almost walked out in 2016 — reaching an overnight deal before a strike. CTU President Stacy Davis Gates had said she thought this round of negotiations would be more straightforward after the union helped get one of its organizers, Brandon Johnson, elected as mayor in 2023.

But talks turned out to be contentious. The union typically points to the incumbent mayor as its foil, having gone to blows with former mayors Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot. In these talks, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez was the one painted as impeding a quick and easy deal. The CTU laid out an ambitious 700 proposals and school district officials said the price tag was an exorbitant $10 billion.

At the same time, a conflict erupted over whether the school district would reimburse City Hall for a pension payment that covers CPS staff who aren’t teachers. Though the mayor demanded it, Martinez didn’t put it in the CPS budget — pitting the pension cost against paying for the teachers contract, arguing the school district couldn’t afford both this year.

The mayor and CTU grew frustrated with Martinez for setting up that conflict. The Sun-Times and WBEZ first reported in August that Johnson’s administration was laying the groundwork to oust Martinez two weeks before the school year — and then reported a few weeks later that Johnson asked Martinez if he would agree to leave his post. The schools chief wrote in an op-ed that he rejected that call.

This situation put the mayor’s appointed school board in a corner and eventually saw every member resign at once. Johnson’s new appointees fired Martinez in December as the CTU’s Davis Gates pressed hard for a contract resolution.

A clause in Martinez’s contract keeps him on the job until the end of June because he was let go without cause. CTU leaders have said that Martinez lingering on the job was an obstacle and called him more obstinate after he was fired.

Last week, Johnson called all parties to his office to try to broker a deal. Davis Gates and Martinez emerged from that meeting visibly angry at each other, but union sources said that gathering proved to be a turning point because significant progress was made the following morning.