On May 16, CTU members should avoid the polls
It was 2019 when Jesse Sharkey won reelection to lead the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). A political activist who masquerades as a classroom educator, Sharkey overcame Members First’s slate at the close of the polls.
Sharkey’s return to lead the CTU extended the iron grip of the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE) over the union and within months of his victory at the ballot box, the CTU went on strike. Three years later, in 2022, Sharkey decision to stand down from running for a third term ushered in rule under Stacy Davis Gates.
Unlike 2019, in which Sharkey faced only one opponent, Davis Gates’ field of challengers swelled to include a slate from the newly formed Respect-Educate-Advocate-Lead (REAL) Caucus. In the three-way race, the controversial Davis Gates emerged victorious with 56 percent of the vote.
Under Davis Gates, the CTU amplified its political activism to place CTU organizer Brandon Johnson into City Hall, and the fissures which separate and isolate the three dominant caucuses deepened and widened. A despot who is intolerant of even the slightest din of dissent, Davis Gates’ prospects for reelection rose when Members First declined to form a slate for the May 16th CTU elections.
While Davis Gates’ pathway to reelection is not as steep as once thought, REAL remains an obstacle. How big a hindrance REAL presents to CORE is not entirely clear, yet REAL leadership is convinced it can throw out Davis Gates from her leadership position if the strategy it envisages of appealing to eligible CTU voters materializes. At the heart of REAL’s assumption is the notion CTU members likely to vote are inclined to discard better judgment and pay any price to unseat Davis Gates and oust her ruling CORE Caucus.
To fully grasp the composition of the CTU, readers must recognize the CTU once was a unified labor organization. When CORE assumed leadership over the CTU in 2010, it established exclusionary rule and deeply polarized the union. Alarmed with CORE’s radicalism, its guileful use of membership dues, and its dramatic departure from the guiding principles of the union, Members First was founded in 2016. Six years later, REAL surfaced.
That REAL evolved as an independent caucus is not the result of philosophical contradictions with CORE. An outgrowth of CORE, the impetus for REAL to secede from CORE is personality conflicts with CORE leadership. This is to say, after 12 years of close collaboration, rifts developed between influential figures at the top of the leadership pyramid at CORE, and a deep loathing for each other provoked the split.
Although the head of REAL’s slate, Erika Meza, has attempted to portray her caucus as a palatable alternative to CORE to attract votes, a ballot cast for the REAL slate to lead the CTU is wholly unworthy of CTU voters' consideration. In their sales pitch appealing to union membership, REAL officers have asserted ideological differences which exist between REAL and CTU members at large can be smoothed out if not entirely erased. A falsehood, REAL’s plank is driven by the same set of ideologically radical ideas as CORE’s, to the point CORE and REAL are all but indistinguishable. Ultimately, REAL’s thrust to lure votes is a furtive attempt to co-opt independent voters and to treat them as unequal members.
While it may be tempting for CTU voters to support REAL by quietly casting a ballot in its favor on May 16, for eligible voters who are concerned with the current leadership, and the future of the Chicago Teachers Union, a vote to replace CORE with REAL is a ballot cast for continuity, and would lead to members witnessing the replacement of CORE's radical machinery with an identical fringe regime.
Therefore, it is Contrarian’s position CTU members who are unnerved with the current state of affairs at the CTU are best served by forgoing voting in the upcoming May 16th CTU election. It is our unshakable conviction non-participation in the forthcoming election sends a powerful message to CTU leadership, Chicago, and all unionists, ideological extremism is intolerable.
The choices to lead the Chicago Teachers Union are simply awful. Sit this election out.
