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For Immediate Release
September, 27 2019, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Ronnie Reese 312-329-6235, RonnieReese@ctulocal1.org
Ninety-four Percent of CTU Members Vote to Authorize Strike for Schools Chicago's Students Deserve
Chicago Teachers Union House of Delegates governing body will set strike date at Wednesday, Oct. 2, meeting.
WASHINGTON
The Chicago Teachers Union this evening released totals of the Sept. 24-26 strike authorization vote. The CTU Rules and Election Committee reported that as of 9:30 p.m., the Union passed the 75 percent threshold of members voting "yes." Ninety-four percent of teachers, clinicians, PSRPs, nurses, librarians voted to authorize a strike to win the schools Chicago's students deserve.
The vote stands as a mandate from CTU members for Chicago Public Schools to uphold promises of equity and educational justice made by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and that those promises must be in writing in an enforceable contract. This is the only way to hold the district to its word after decades of austerity, budget cuts, understaffing, school closings and privatization.
The CTU House of Delegates will convene for its next scheduled meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 2, to set a strike date. The earliest the Union could strike is Oct. 7. The work stoppage would be the third since 2011 and the first under Lightfoot.
"Our school communities are desperately short of nurses, social workers, psychologists, counselors and other support staff, even as our students struggle with high levels of trauma driven by poverty and neighborhood violence," CTU President Jesse Sharkey said. "This vote represents a true mandate for change."
"And all of our members vote, not just 30 percent of the electorate," Sharkey said.
Bargaining Update
Rank-and-file members met with the district today to negotiate over early childhood and bilingual education provisions. They were sorely disappointed at the non-engagement from the other side. Watch their explanation in this video:
An affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), CTU is the third largest teachers local in the country and the largest local union in Illinois.
LATEST NEWS
'Financial Murder': Dems Slam Trump Team Falsely Declaring Thousands Dead in Social Security File
"This inhumane, illegal, and unconstitutional action will inflict—and already has inflicted—irreparable harm on these individuals," senators wrote of the effort to make thousands of immigrants "self-deport."
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Just a day after Senate Republicans confirmed U.S. President Donald Trump's Social Security Administration commissioner, Frank Bisignano, the chamber's Democrats on Wednesday announced a series of letters about outstanding questions and concerns regarding the federal agency—including one that demands an investigation into what they call attempted "financial murder."
Two of the letters unveiled Wednesday were dated April 30. Both were led by Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and signed by a dozen members of the Democratic Caucus: one was to Leland Dudek, then acting commissioner of the SSA, and another was to Michelle Anderson, assistant inspector general for audit at the agency.
The latter asks the SSA Office of the Inspector General to probe reports that the administration "is taking steps to place certain categories of immigrants who have lawfully obtained Social Security numbers (SSNs) in its Death Master File (DMF)," which contains data on more than 141 million people whose deaths were reported to the agency, in an effort to make them "self-deport."
The letter to Dudek declares that "this inhumane, illegal, and unconstitutional action will inflict—and already has inflicted—irreparable harm on these individuals, undermines trust in and accuracy of the Social Security programs, and sets a dangerous precedent in allowing the government to take away Americans' access to their earned Social Security benefits."
"If living number-holders are improperly transferred to the DMF, they lose their ability to legally work in the United States, as well as access to any earned Social Security benefits, healthcare, banking and credit cards, and access to virtually every other exchange with a third-party that is verified by a valid SSN," the letter explains. "The result is, as former SSA Commissioner Martin O'Malley put it, 'tantamount to financial murder.'"
"Changing the name of the database to the 'Ineligible Master File' as a clumsy attempt to evade public criticism or legal exposure does not mitigate these consequences to these individuals, as has already been reported," the letter asserts, urging Dudek "to immediately cease this practice and remove all individuals placed on the DMF through this initiative."
In addition to Wyden, the letters were signed by Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Angus King (I-Maine), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).
Warren and Wyden also partnered with the chamber's New York Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, for a Wednesday letter to Bisignano, who was confirmed Tuesday with a 53-47 vote along party lines.
"Since President Trump took office, we have—prompted by the administration’s attacks on Social Security—sent 17 letters to the Social Security Administration," they wrote. "These letters have sought answers for why the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) appear to be dismantling the SSA, potentially depriving Americans of their hard-earned benefits."
As the letter details:
We have not received responses to the vast majority of our questions. In fact, acting Commissioner Leland Dudek has reportedly instructed staff to not respond to public or congressional inquiries. The limited answers we have received have been unsatisfactory," they continued.
We have also requested information from you directly. Through direct inquires, your hearing before the Senate Committee on Finance, and post-hearing questions for the record, we have sought to determine whether you intend to continue DOGE's disastrous efforts to hollow out the SSA. In response, you repeatedly claimed that, because you were not yet working at SSA, you did not have sufficient information to answer. You made these claims despite the fact that a former SSA employee whistleblower has reported that you have been participating extensively in high-level operational, management, and personnel decisions at SSA.
Now that Bisignano has been confirmed, the senators are demanding answers to their nearly 200 questions.
"We are extraordinarily concerned about the future of the SSA under the Trump administration, and Americans deserve information about the fate of their benefits under your watch," the senators wrote. "We therefore ask that you provide full and complete answers to all of our questions no later than May 21, 2025."
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'US Mail Is Not For Sale': Americans Across Political Spectrum Oppose Postal Service Privatization
"Postal customers should trust their gut when it comes to schemes to sell off or transfer the USPS," said the head of the American Postal Workers Union.
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As the Trump administration signaled a potential step toward privatizing the U.S. Postal Service with the reported selection of a FedEx board member to serve as postmaster general, new polling on Thursday showed just how strongly the American public would oppose such a move.
The survey by Hart Research Associates and North Star Opinion Research, which was commissioned by the American Postal Workers Union, found that 60% of respondents were opposed to privatizing the postal service, while just 26% were in favor.
The opposition cut across ideological, geographic, and demographic divides, with people in all regions of the country saying they wanted to maintain the USPS as a public service by a margin of at least 29 points—and as many as 40 points in western states.
While rural voters supported President Donald Trump by a 23-point margin in the 2024 election, the research firms posited that the heavy reliance people in far-flung areas have on the USPS helped push rural respondents to say they oppose privatization, with 58% saying they were against it.
As Common Dreams reported last month, an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies found that private mail carriers like FedEx and UPS already charge "remote surcharges" to 8% of all U.S. ZIP Codes—home to nearly 4 million people—because they are in mountain communities and other remote areas. While USPS has a universal service obligation, people in rural areas pay up to $15.50 for deliveries from private companies.
Fifty-six percent of Americans said privatization would result in higher prices for mailing packages and letters, while 17% said prices were likely to improve.
Without competition from USPS, private companies could impose additional charges for weekend deliveries, fuel, residential deliveries, and more.
"Postal customers should trust their gut when it comes to schemes to sell off or transfer the USPS," said APWU president Mark Dimondstein. "Plans to privatize the Post Office are about enriching Wall Street and not serving Main Street. Evidence shows that selling off the USPS would lead to higher prices for postal services as well as higher prices for shipping packages at FedEx and UPS."
On the House floor recently, U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) warned that "corporations won't serve what isn't profitable."
"This isn't about efficiency," she said. "This is about dismantling public services so they can prove government doesn't work."
The poll was released two months after Wells Fargo presented a five-step plan for privatizing USPS to Wall Street investors, including raising USPS prices by as much as 140%, selling postal real estate to commercial bidders, and imposing mass layoffs on the service's 600,000 employees.
The bank said privatization would lead to the "harvesting," or closing, of neighborhood post offices across the country—something 72% of respondents opposed in Thursday's poll.
Trump ally Elon Musk also said in March that Amtrak and USPS were top targets for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which the president selected him to lead and which has pushed to dismantle numerous government agencies and laid off nearly 300,000 federal employees.
"I think logically we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized," Musk said. Trump has also expressed support for privatization.
Respondents to Thursday's poll expressed support for a number of steps that could strengthen the U.S. Postal Service's finances, including 77% who backed making office supplies available for purchase in post offices, 72% who supported the selling of hunting and fishing licenses, and 60% who supported making magazines and newspapers available for purchase.
"The survey results indicate that the outlook is good in our ongoing fight against privatizers trying to sell off our public Postal Service for profit," said the APWU. "We should remain steady in our message—the U.S. Mail Is Not for Sale!"
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'We Have No More Food,' Says World Central Kitchen Amid Israeli Attacks and Deadly Starvation
"Our trucks—loaded with food and supplies—are waiting in Egypt, Jordan, and Israel, ready to enter Gaza," said WCK founder José Andrés. "But they cannot move without permission."
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After serving more than 130 million meals and distributing 26 million loaves of bread to Gazans over the past 18 months, even after repeated—and critics say deliberate—Israeli massacres of its staff, World Central Kitchen said Wednesday that it has no more food left to prepare as Israel continues to block lifesaving aid from entering the embattled enclave and more Palestinians starve to death.
"World Central Kitchen no longer has the supplies to cook meals or bake bread in Gaza," the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit said in a statement. "We have no more food to prepare."
"We have now reached the limits of what is possible."
"Since Israel closed border crossings in early March, WCK has been unable to replenish the stocks of food that we use to feed hundreds of thousands of Gazans daily," the group continued, referring to Israel's tightening of the 579-day "complete siege" imposed on the Palestinian territory after the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
"In recent weeks, our teams stretched every remaining ingredient and fuel source using creativity and determination," WCK said. "We turned to alternative fuels like wood pallets and olive husk pellets and pivoted away from rice recipes that require more fuel in favor of stews with bread."
"By constantly adapting over the past weeks, we were cooking 133,000 meals daily at our two remaining WCK field kitchens and baking 80,000 loaves of bread each day," the charity added. "But we have now reached the limits of what is possible."
WCK kept serving Gaza even after Israeli airstrikes killed 11 of its staff members.
In April 2024, seven members of a WCK aid team were killed when their clearly marked convoy was bombed in Deir al-Balah, despite receiving travel clearance from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which knew exactly where the vehicles were. Renowned Spanish-American chef José Andrés, who founded WCK in 2010—and was a vocal defender of Israel—called the attack "deliberate" as some Israelis took to social media to mock the slain humanitarians.
Seven months later, Israel bombed a WCK vehicle traveling in Khan Younis, killing three of the group's staffers. A "double-tap" follow-up strike killed two bystanders who attempted to help the initial victims.
In March 2025, a WCK volunteer was killed by an Israeli airstrike near one of the charity's Gaza facilities.
The slain WCK staffers are among the more than 400 humanitarian workers killed by Israeli bombs or bullets in Gaza, where more than 52,600 Palestinians—most of them women and children—have been slaughteredd and over 118,700 others wounded since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Upward of 14,000 Gazans are also missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed buildings. Nearly all of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced, often multiple times, while starvation and sickness ravage the besieged strip.
Deadly malnutrition—which has claimed the lives of at least dozens of Gazans, mostly children—has increased markedly since Israel's March 2 lockdown. Local officials say that at least 57 Palestinians have died from malnutrition combined with lack of adequate medical care. One of the most recent victims was 4-month-old Jenan Saleh al-Skafi, who died of severe malnutrition in al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City on May 2.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 65,000 children in Gaza require urgent treatment for severe malnutrition.
Israel—which is facing an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice—stands accused of using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza. Israeli leaders including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have endorsed bombing Gaza's food stores and other humanitarian aid. Ben-Gvir claimed Republican leaders in the United States, which provides Israel with diplomatic cover and tens of billions of dollars in armed aid, agree with his stance.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a fugitive from the International Criminal Court, where he is wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity including extermination and forced starvation, has backed his ministers' calls to starve Gaza.
Despite the growing starvation in Gaza, Israel is making it harder for foreign-based nongovernmental organizations to register and operate in Palestine by imposing what European lawmakers this week called "purposely vague" and "highly discretionary" new rules.
Although it is out of food, WCK said it is still able to distribute desperately needed potable water to Palestinians in Gaza.
"Our pots may be empty, our cooking fires snuffed out—but World Central Kitchen will keep serving," said Andrés. "Our trucks—loaded with food and supplies—are waiting in Egypt, Jordan, and Israel, ready to enter Gaza. But they cannot move without permission. Humanitarian aid must be allowed to flow."
WCK Gaza response director Wadhah Hubaishi asserted that "the borders need to open for World Central Kitchen to be able to feed people in need."
"If given full access to our infrastructure, partnerships, and incoming supplies," he added, "we are capable of providing hungry families in Gaza with 500,000 meals a day."
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