It’s past time for the Chicago Teachers Union to come clean on its finances.
One of the oddest long-standing issues in Chicago politics has been CTU’s stubborn resistance over the past several years to sharing full audited financials with its own members, as the union’s bylaws seem to require. The union’s secretive ways, naturally, have prompted plenty of conspiracy-theorizing.
What could CTU be hiding? From its own members, no less?
The union reacted to these complaints at first by largely ignoring them. But as the drumbeat grew louder and the union was taken to court by several of its own members over the issue, CTU’s protestations took on the sort of tone we now too often associate with CTU’s leadership: ad hominem attacks.
Case in point: CTU President Stacy Davis Gates in 2023 derided a fellow union member who raised the audit issue in a Facebook forum as employing a racist “dog whistle.”
Reference to that exchange showed up in a Nov. 20 letter to Davis Gates from the GOP chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce, as well as a subcommittee chairman, requesting the multiple audits in question (five of them, dating back to 2020) as well as ancillary materials. The letter goes on to say that the materials will help the panel determine potential future federal legislation, presumably to ensure public-sector union members, whether in Chicago or elsewhere, have unfettered access to such basic information.
A lawyer for CTU responded Nov. 24 with a letter pledging to cooperate with any “legitimate requests.” The union’s lawyer expressed confidence that the materials the union will furnish by Dec. 22 will satisfy the committee, but the repetition of the word “legitimate” suggested the two sides may have some differences there. We’ll see.
In the meantime, litigation against CTU by several of its own members continues, with a Cook County Circuit Court judge set to rule soon on the union’s motion for summary judgment. That judge already ruled against CTU’s bid to dismiss the lawsuit.
All of this sturm und drang over something as seemingly benign as audits of books that shouldn’t be particularly complex is puzzling, to say the least.
Some have posited that CTU’s motivations so far are about hiding from its membership how much money it’s spending on political donations and lobbying, as member dues continue to rise. But the broad contours of the union’s political activities are well understood. It’s hardly a secret that CTU spends heavily on politics. Its very own former organizer installed in City Hall as mayor of Chicago attests to that obvious fact.
We confess not to understand why the union has been so recalcitrant on this issue to date. A lawyer representing CTU, Michael Bromwich, told the Chicago Sun-Times, “There is much less here than meets the eye.”
We hope so. But here’s a plain truth: If you don’t want to be accused of having something to hide, stop acting as if you do.
There should be no need for lawsuits or congressional inquiries. Make the full past audits available to all members in an easy-to-access fashion, CTU, and do so routinely going forward.
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