On Sept. 28, 1987, during the ninth Chicago teachers strike in 19 years, Charlene Kopnick crossed a picket line to report to her district office.
Twenty picketers, including a leader with a bullhorn, chanted, ”Charlene Kopnick is a scab,” according to a complaint Kopnick filed with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board. Her complaint, which asked that the union be dissolved, was denied.
The next day, says Kopnick, a public school teacher since 1964, her car was blocked and hit by a CTU organizer as she drove into the parking lot.
”I hadn`t worked since June, and I needed the money,” Kopnick said.
”But I also didn`t think we should be on strike. I used to be a militant unionist, but I resigned from the CTU a few years ago.
”The union has become a powerful bureaucracy that is insensitive to people,” she said. ”It doesn`t care about children.
”I`d like to make more money, but until we can give people the right kind of return on their tax dollars, we don`t deserve a raise.”
Kopnick, who teaches 5th grade at Plamondon Elementary, 1525 S. Washtenaw Ave., is in the minority among Chicago teachers.
The vast majority belong to the Chicago Teachers Union. It`s 28,000 members include teachers, assistant principals, school nurses, librarians, social workers, psychologists, counselors, truant officers, hearing testers, vision testers, library assistants, clerks, teacher aides, school aides, instructional aides, interpreter aides, interpreter clerks and community representatives.
Members pay $346 a year in dues, deducted from their paychecks. Workers who choose not to join the union pay 85 percent of that, or $294.
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A copy of the current union budget, which the union says it sent to the Tribune, was never received, and union spokesman Chuck Burdeen said he was unable to find another copy.
The CTU`s 1983 federal income tax forms, the most recent available, showed annual revenue of $5.6 million and annual expenses of $5.8 million.
The union`s power is implemented in each school through a delegate and a professional problems committee made up of the delegate and other CTU members. The committee is encouraged to meet at least once a month with the principal ”to discuss school operations and questions,” according to the 1987 CTU`s delegate`s handbook of policies and procedures.
Issues that can be discussed include discipline, staffing, working conditions and educational policy, according to the handbook.
Union delegates are advised, when meeting with the principal, to:
”Remember that this is a meeting of equals. You and the other members of the professional problems committee are acting as official representatives of the Chicago Teachers Union, not merely as faculty members under the principal`s supervision.”
The school board negotiates with 17 other unions, which with the CTU represent 90 percent of the 41,389 employees.
A 1983 agreement in which the CTU and the other unions agreed to respect each others` strikes, and to remain out until everyone was satisfied, has held through four strikes.
”That was the turning point, when the teachers union really became part of the labor movement in Chicago,” said Carmell.
”In the 1984 strike, (then-Supt.) Ruth Love had fired two supervising engineers for refusing to cross the picket line. The engineers refused to go back until the men were reinstated,” Carmell said. ”The teachers stood with them, and the strike went on another day, until 3 a.m., when Love realized they were serious.
”That was when the teachers recognized that they were workers, that their interests lie with the carpenters, truck drivers and engineers in their schools.”
With nearly all the workforce unionized and united, Vaughn has the leverage she has needed to win pay raises and beneficial contract provisions, and to build a spirit of union solidarity.
There was a time when Vaughn would walk into a union rally, always fashionably late, and the audience would erupt into shouts of ”Jack-ie! Jack- ie! Jack-ie!”
But her popularity waned in the settlement of the bitter 19-day strike last fall. The walkout jolted parents into unprecedented protests and resulted in a new contract that gave teachers a 4 percent raise-actually, only 2.9 percent this year since it did not take effect until January.
Teachers won a raise in a two-year contract contingent upon new money being available for the second year. It also won a reduction in average class size in a few schools. But Vaughn was criticized by many union members for accepting a small raise that was funded in part by eliminating positions. The contract was approved by the closest ballot in CTU history.
Deborah Underwood, a 7th-grade teacher at Piccolo Elementary, 1040 N. Keeler Ave., crossed the picket line during the 1985 and 1987 strikes because, she said, ”It`s like saying (to the children), `I don`t care about you unless I`m getting paid.”
Despite last fall`s strike, Vaughn had only one challenger when she ran for re-election Friday, and the opponent, George Schmidt, an English teacher at Amundsen High, is a longtime union dissident. The results of the vote will not be announced until Tuesday.
Vaughn predicts that she will prevail in the vote. She contends that the narrow contract approval was more a show of anger toward the Board of Education than a statement against the CTU and its leadership.
”The members are not angry at me or the union,” Vaughn said. ”They are angry that they had to walk the picket line for four weeks to get a raise that the board could have afforded all along. I think I`ve done a good job, and I think the members know that, too.”
The changing attitude of some members, however, was evident during a union meeting in February. The CTU president was greeted with only a scattering of applause, and more than half the audience left early.
And Vaughn`s suggestion that the union newspaper include columns from other unions such as the Teamsters, as a way of forming a caucus, elicited hisses and boos.
”The CTU is like a family to us,” one man yelled. ”I suggest you consider that. If you want to run for political office, do it outside of the union.”
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Labor negotiations are traditionally held behind closed doors. What plays out publicly tends to be posturing. In bigtime negotiations, especially in the public sector, it is critical for each side to seek public sympathy.
During Chicago teacher strikes, television appearances by union and board representatives are choreographed. Major announcements are timed to gibe with the evening television news.
It was public dissatisfaction with both sides that finally forced a settlement of last fall`s strike. When that dissatisfaction reached Mayor Harold Washington, he told the 11 men and women appointed to run the schools that it was time to throw in the towel, according to Munoz.
”After 19 days, the mayor told the board that he felt that the children`s interests were becoming subservient to what had clearly become a personal battleground,” Munoz said.
Four months later, with the public still clamoring for reform, several key players were asked about the strike.
”There`s a missing piece of the puzzle that I`m not sure anyone can find,” said Munoz.
”Vaughn could not accept a contract with cutbacks. We knew that. But she had several alternatives . . . (but) she went on strike, betting completely that a third party would intervene in the strike. She took that risk, and she lost.”
Vaughn sees the situation differently.
”Some people overplayed their hand,” Vaughn said. ”The board was operating under the assumption that money would be forthcoming. The mayor said he had enough votes to override (Gov. James) Thompson`s veto.
”My members remembered two years before when we went back without a contract and then had to go traipsing out in December, on the coldest day of the year. They told me, `Never again.`
”So there we were, looking like fools, wagging around with our sticks when every other district in the state was in school. And at the same time, our brother and sister locals around the nation were getting big raises.”
One board member who has lived through several strikes says that the familar steps signaling the end of a strike didn`t occur this time.
Ironically, he said, the usual procedure involves an outside labor leader or politician playing the role that the public thinks mediators get paid to do.
”We`ll get a call from Bob Healey (former CTU president, now president of the Chicago Federation of Labor) or from the mayor or the governor.
”Healey will call and say, `I know this is what you`ve offered, but Jackie will never take it. Are you sure you can`t come up with something better?` And you have to be straight with him because you need him to put the screws to Jackie when he is sure that you`ve made your final offer.
”When he is sure that you have nothing more to give, he plays the same game with Jackie. After awhile, Healey will tell Jackie, `That`s all you`re going to get. Get your people in.`
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”This time, this didn`t happen,” the board member said. ”No one came to close the deal.”
Instead, the settlement echoed the times when the late Mayor Richard J. Daley would stride into negotiations and tell the board to give the teachers a raise-whether the money was there or not.
Vaughn blames Supt. Manford Byrd Jr. for the breakdown in the bargaining process.
”I have nothing bad to say about the board`s negotiating team,” she said. ”But when it got to the money, they were just a shell. You hear me?
Byrd would not allow his team to make decisions and get messages.
”The board president was put up there as a foil. He said what he was told to say. Even then he didn`t know what he was saying.”
”Finally, we had to settle for the good of the system,” Vaughn said.
”People said to me, `You`ve got them by the jugular-stay out.` But we couldn`t do that.”
Byrd says the impasse developed because the board ”simply didn`t have the resources” to meet the teachers` demands.
”The board wanted to keep money for repairs and supplies,” Byrd said.
”No matter how popular it is to cry, `Chop the top,` when you do that, you lose services. People are complaining now that our mail is slower than before at central office.”
Such bickering between the board and union is seen by many labor analysts as part and parcel of their poor relations. Outsiders who have taken part in past negotiations and mediations have been taken aback at a bargaining relationship they find distinctly immature and counterproductive.
The students, board and union all suffered losses in the walkout.
”The board came out of the strike, as it always does, very badly,” said Munoz. ”And rightly so. When employees fight with the board and there is a disaster, it is fair play to say the board should have better relationships with its employees. One side has to be responsible.”
Vaughn said: ”We didn`t come out looking like a rose. The current push for parental control of schools is a direct result of the lingering anger over our last struggle.”
– – –
This is not the first time the cry for ”Reform!” has gone out. In Springfield in the spring of 1985, calls for reform were in the air.
U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett was spearheading a nationwide campaign to improve education. In the Illinois legislature, there were dozens of ”reform” proposals on the table.
Along with the proposals for more money, tougher courses and early childhood education, there was a bill that, at first blush, few lawmakers thought they could oppose.
Several teachers and a principal in Illinois had been arrested for child abuse in the past year. One had taught for more than a decade, moving from school to school, molesting children. He had an undetected criminal record.
At the same time, a private Chicago day-care center was the subject of an investigation of child molestating.
Bills were introduced to fingerprint child-care providers and teachers. The rationale was that repeat sex abusers could be identified and kept away from children.
Day-care operators expressed horror that any in their ranks would abuse a child, and, lacking strong representation, reluctantly agreed to let their workers be fingerprinted.
The teachers also expressed outrage at child abuse, but said ”no” to fingerprints. They said it would make them look like criminals. They cited statistics that parents were more likely to abuse their children than were teachers. They maintained that they were, after all, a cut above child-care workers.
It was a loud, resounding, pull-out-all-the-stops ”no,” an example of the power of the teacher unions to kill legislation they do not like.
Union leaders passed out buttons with a red slash across a thumbprint. They called on their friends in labor to round up votes. Lawmakers were reminded of the contributions in money and workers their campaigns had received. The Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, normally archrivals, worked together for a change to fight the hated fingerprint bill.
In the end, a watered-down version of the law was passed, requiring criminal background checks of new teachers.
Current teachers-most of them dues-paying union members-were exempt.
The unions had won.
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Chicago provides less tax money per pupil than any community in Cook or Du Page.