Wed Jul 16, 2008 at 5:01 AMBy: George N. Schmidt Unions, Chicago, and Innovation Randi Weingarten is the main prop at this point holding up what's left of Marilyn Stewart, but since Randi created Marilyn Stewart back in 2004, that's cute but not surprising.

In 2004, Randi was in charge of the committee that investigated all of the vote fraud that gave Marilyn the count in the second (June 2004, runoff) election. Randi made sure that the investigative committee ran through its agenda in one day (she didn't want to waste time on too much of the evidence because she wanted to get to the Democratic Convention; remember, the one that launched Captain Kerry and Lieutenant Edwards on that ill-fated -- and terribly branded -- activity to give George W. Bush and Dick Cheney their second term?).

Anyway, Randi's investigation ruled that Marilyn had won the vote, and Debbie Lynch was ousted from the CTU offices. As soon as Marilyn walked in, she fired me and a dozen others. That breach of workers' contracts by the new "Union" president was actually Marilyn's first act as President -- playing Donald Trump: "You're fired!"

So as soon as Randi created Marilyn, Randi left town to help create "Kerry Edwards" and Marilyn began taking the CTU into a tailspin (at least as far as workers' rights have been concerned). Of course, it took four years and an expensive court case (Schmidt v. CTU) to prove Marilyn had violated the rights of the workers at the CTU itself, and by the time that case was finished (May 2008) and the bill had been completely paid by Marilyn signing that court-ordered check to me ($166,000 and change), Randi was paying a lot more to keep Marilyn propped up, just as she had propped up Marilyn from Day One.

Although the American Federation of Teachers had a couple of politically connected kids "organizing" the charter schools (it's obvious how well that expensive proposition has gone by the number of charter schools in Chicago that have been organized), nobody from AFT or AFT's boot on the ground here in Chicago noticed that Marilyn was draining the union's assets. Every year when Marilyn presented the union's budget, Marilyn was allowed by her enablers to shout down her critics, while she was spending the union into the ground on cronyism and corruption. (I'm using that word with confidence here. Watch what happens next).

By the time Marilyn was reelected in May 2007, the union treasury was seriously in trouble, but Marilyn and her people just kept screaming it was everyone else's fault.

Then, when the union almost lost the ability to pay its bills last winter (the Ted Dallas attack by Marilyn was in part a diversion from the fact that she had burned through more than $5 million in three years -- "Shop till you drop!" anyone? -- and then went in the red just in time for the AFT to be heading to Chicago.

That's right, by January and February 2008, AFTs people were in Chicago checking the books. At that point, no "Whops!" from Marilyn Stewart (or screaming attacks on her predecessors, which by then included her own Tom Reece and Jackie Vaughn), and the only thing AFT could do to keep Marilyn's little ship afloat was to so-sign about $3 million in loans from Amalgamated Bank. Now Randi Weingarten was not AFT President in early 2008 when AFT bailed out Marilyn Stewart's faction in the CTU, but she might as well have been. Randi was one of the people running AFT as part of the New York crowd, while Ed McElroy was President for a few more months.

So AFT bailed out CTU just in time for the AFT show to come to Chicago.

Then, to make things really nice for Chicago teachers, a couple of days ago Marilyn and all the members of the Chicago delegation (with a handful of "No" votes, but the way) voted to approve an increase in national union dues which will be passed along to the local union dues. So that means that all CTU members this year will be paying dues that have been increased from two angles. The local dues will go up if your pay goes up. And the national pass through will make another "go up."

Back to Randi and Marilyn.

Assuming that all the investigations of CTU result in another cover up of what Marilyn Stewart has been doing, there will still be the need, at least when national spotlights shine on Chicago, to keep a very very close eye on things. Randi, I'm told, was actually surprised that Marilyn Stewart had looted the union's reserves.

Every check was signed by Marilyn Stewart. Even Randi is a good enough lawyer and executive to realize that Marilyn can't keep saying, "I was too trusting." The total loss in four years of Marilyn (August 2008 is the fourth anniversary of Marilyn walking into the CTU offices) is more than eight million dollars, through both cronyism (just giving away anything she was asked to by her cronies) and outright corruption of the traditional Chicago kind (those "Go Promotion" expenses, which are truly a hoot now that the fanny packs have been added to all the other bills -- and two months after AFT supposedly put the CTU on a careful fiscal diet to boot!).

Through bumblings (going ahead for four years paying lawyers lots of money to oppose our litigation, for example), outright cronyism (all the jobs and expenses Marilyn approved for the staff she didn't try to fire), and downright corruption (Go Promotions) this one is big.

Five years ago, the Washington Post had a field day when the FBI raided the home of the President of the Washington, D.C. local of the American Federation of Teachers after a federal indictment was handed down. One of the things the D.C. newspapers put on page one was the inventory of fur coats from the President's closet. Around the same time, the feds indicted the President of the United Teachers of Dade (County, Florida; Miami). In his case, one of the things on Page One was an expensive pair of pajamas he had bought during a junket to Thailand (don't even ask for more about that; when AFT displays its sillier corruptions nationally, there is no shame).

Randi just finished propping up Marilyn Stewart again.

Whether she and AFT can continue to do so remains to be seen.

Wed Jul 16, 2008 at 3:41 PMBy: Danny Unions, Chicago, and Innovation How widespread is the community schools approach in Chicago?
What if any budget or other control does Weingarten have over CTU?
What if anything ever happened to the idea of union-run, or organized, charters in Chicago?

My 15-year tenure with CPS has been with only one school--a northside school in a middle-class neighborhood that actively tries to recruit students from "the neighborhood." We've been largely successful at that, and our demographics have changed considerably since 2000.

We (I mean, collectively) do not wish to emulate a "community schools" approach. That doesn't mean that we don't have staff (full-time social worker, nurse, and psychologists) and programs that network with existing social services.

But, as one parent put it at an LSC meeting several years ago, "nothing says 'ghetto' like a school clinic that hands out birth control." The community simply doesn't want that for our school.

As far as budgetary control, the budget narrowly passed for next year was put together with input from an AFT auditor. The AFT is paying (out of the $5 or 6 million we remit to them) for a financial officer position--something like a controller. Apparently, even though the Union has a treasurer and a financial secretary, no one has ever reported to Marilyn whether we are staying within our budgets. She says this new position will be a check on union finances. I'm sure this person will know who pays him/her (that is, the AFT). There is also the matter of that $3 million loan the AFT co-signed for the CTU.

In light of the foregoing, I should think that the AFT has considerable control of the CTU budget.

Finally, I don't recall discussion about union-run charter schools. At House of Delegates meetings, it seems someone routinely asks whether CTU is trying to organize the existing charter schools. Marilyn either gives a vague answer or points her finger at the audience and tells us that is our job to do.

Wed Jul 16, 2008 at 5:51 PMBy: Evelyn Unions, Chicago, and Innovation I understand that MS had purchased personal items on her CTU charge card and that she, too had some very fancy dinners. I suppose with all the attention going on she has repaid those personal charges by this time. If so, would that get her off the hook?
Randi Weingarten is an excellent attorney herself. One would hope she would see the absurdity of this "trial".

Wed Jul 16, 2008 at 9:14 PMBy: Marricat Unions, Chicago, and Innovation I was on George's committee when he was employed by the Union and that was long before Debra lost (?) the election so the contract was signed while she was in office. I know George to be very careful to check and recheck his facts. Nothing gets published in Substance without being verified. That's more than I can say for the Union rag.

Marilyn is not going to hear the end of this until the books are opened to an independent audit and that day is coming.

Wed Jul 16, 2008 at 10:43 PMBy: NEA just get out from AFT Unions, Chicago, and Innovation Hello get out of the corrupted group it is so simple.

Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 8:21 AMBy: George N. Schmidt Unions, Chicago, and Innovation "...As usual george your bs is as bad as your news reporting in the rag called Substance. You got 160,000.00 plus for doing no work and sitting on your but laughing at the members whose $ you got. Real integrity george..." (earlier, from "curious").

One of the nice things about knowing technology is knowing how easily you can find out your secret admirer. Back in the day when they did "Secret Admirer" at real schools, it was a bit more difficult, but not impossible. So I just spent a little time before smiling and thinking, "Larry... You shouldn't have..." But since you did, here are some facts.

The actual check Marilyn Stewart wrote (dated June 12, 2008) was for $166,774.36 and it was signed by Marilyn Stewart and Lou Esther Jackson (who is not, by the way, CTU Treasurer; go figure). The check cleared and after my attorneys were paid, the net to me was $123,541.52.

That $166,774.36 was the final judgment signed after trial (Judge Winkler) by both attorneys (Wayne for CTU; Alan for my side) and ended, after nearly four years, the case called "Schmidt v. CTU."

The total cost of "Schmidt v. CTU" to the Chicago Teachers Union was probably around a half million dollars. This includes the amount the CTU had to pay each of the eight plaintiffs (myself; Sarah Loftus; Jay Rehak; Debby Pope; Alan Bearden; Marty McGreal; Ms. Ritchie -- I could never pronounce her first name -- and Stacey Carter) for violating our contractual rights as workers at the Chicago Teachers Union when, in violation of our contracts, Marilyn Stewart fired us in August and September 2004.

My estimate is that each of the other plaintiffs got at least $35,000 -- depending upon their mitigation. That's $245,000 for them on top of the $166,000 to me -- for a total of $411,000 for contracts that should have been honored.

But CTU demanded that that amount be secret in every instance but mine. I think CTU members have the right to know the total cost, but that's for future revelations and investigations. Meanwhile, I'll report that that one instance of shoddy thinking and dumb legal advice cost the union's members more than a half million dollars.

But that's not the only cost to the members of the Chicago Teachers Union for two stupid decisions.

The first stupid decision was by Marilyn Stewart (thinking she could just play Donald Trump and fire us without due process or honoring our contracts).

The second stupid decision was following the legal advice of Poltrock and Poltrock for nearly four years, at very great expenses ($300 per hour; more for court appearances) to CTU.

Unfortunately, CTU spent at least a half million dollars (probably a lot more, once we know how much law we bought and how much all that law cost) on that case, and it was wasted.

The biggest waste was on the legal fees, and that's really what CTU members should think about in the coming years. To date, nobody in CTU knows how much Marilyn Stewart paid to the three or four lawyers Poltrock and Poltrock sent out (and billed for) at various times during the four years of "Schmidt v. CTU."

Why?

Because Poltrock and Poltrock -- backed by the American Federation of Teachers financial wizzes and the AFT attorneys -- have advised Marilyn Stewart to continue to lie to the members of the CTU about how she's been wasting CTU dollars the past four years. And one of the biggest wastes is on bad legal advice, only one example of which is the total cost of "Schmidt v. CTU."

As far as I know, my Secret Admirer (anonymous, as "curious" above) never worked at Bowen or Amundsen -- let alone Manley, Marshall, Dunbar, DuSable, Tilden, Prosser, Steinmetz, or any of the other schools at which I taught during an exciting 28 year career in Chicago's classrooms -- as a teacher. But one of the wonderful things about the Internet (and blog etiquette) is that any shyster lawyer can come creeping in here behind the fog of anonymity and try to shill some more.

If CTU members are interested in the total cost of "Schmidt v. CTU", I'm going to continue pursuing those questions. But since the CTU attorneys decided to keep those costs a secret from the union's members, it's still not possible to bring the whole amount out in public down to the decimal point (as I can do for my small part in it).

As to suing the Chicago Teachers Union.

When workers' rights are violated, you file a grievance or sue.

We had contracts with CTU, and CTU violated those contracts.

So we sued and won.

Now my secret admirers can rant and rave and rage all they want behind the screen of anonymity, but the fact remains that they spent a lot of money over four years on lawyers to lose a big case. Instead, they might have just read our contracts at the time and said, "Let's work something out."

Anyone who thinks I'm going to spend a lifetime defending workers' rights as a union delegate and staff member and not defend my own rights and the rights of my family needs to get his purple head examined. From now until whenever, that's what this is about. Just because this "grievance" against a boss had to be filed by people who had worked for the Chicago Teachers Union and the boss was Marilyn Stewart doesn't change the essential facts.

And, by the way, CTU had the option after my part of the case ended at trial to appeal if there had been any legal grounds to do so. From May 14 to June 14, the appeal was in order. Of course, CTU's lawyer had signed off on the agreement in front of Judge Winkler on May 14, so an attempt to appeal would have been tacky.

But so was the whole case, including the various lies that CTU tried to tell and failed to support during the four years Marilyn, Larry, and that happy band of secret admirers were wasting CTU dollars on such silly stuff.

I knew when those blue jeans disappeared off the porch we'd be continuing this fun talk somewhere. Scratch and sniff, SA, scratch and sniff.

Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 8:33 AMBy: Kugler - Fresh Start? Unions, Chicago, and Innovation Danny makes a good point when did the HoD approve the Fresh Start program.

Was there a vote to amend the contract? if so when?

It this another magic vote we took sometime some day i do not remember.

Sun Jul 20, 2008 at 12:17 AMBy: Danny Unions, Chicago, and Innovation I think the Union should not be in the business of running schools--charter or otherwise. Running schools makes you management. There is a conflict of interest if the Union that represents labor interests is also the management.

I used to support charter schools without reservation. I do believe parents and their children, teachers, and administrators should be free to choose their schools.

Further, it is only fair that the money follows the student. If traditional school A loses students to charter school B, it is only fair for A to lose money and B to gain it.

My support for charters is no longer unqualified.

Last year I saw reports in Catalyst and elsewhere that the charter schools were getting the Lion's share of capital construction funds. This is patently UNfair. I understand capital funds are different. Because projects are so expensive, these funds are doled out on a per-student basis; but on a needs basis. It is wrong to show blatant favoritism in constructing brand new schools for charters, while ignoring traditional schools that are falling down around students.

Still, with that reservation, I believe charter-bashing to be mean-spirited, stingy, and anti-public education.