All Progressives Should Join CTU In Building a Forcefield Against Trump's Agenda

On Thursday, March 20th, Donald Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the federal Department of Education, a move which erased funding and anti-discrimination protections for students all over the country. At the same moment, rank-and-file members of the Chicago Teachers Union packed the chambers of the Chicago Board of Education to demand more resources for their students. CTU’s history and current activity give us a roadmap for how to unite diverse movements against the Trump administration’s attacks on the people.

We saw at that moment two polar opposites at work: on one side, the rich and powerful aiming to take resources from communities, on the other, working class people, disproportionately Black and Latina women, fighting for more resources for their communities.

This is not a new fight. Trump is piling on top of attacks on public services started by the Reagan administration more than 40 years ago. In Chicago, these attacks were spearheaded by the likes of Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel, and in the education sphere specifically by Paul Vallas, Arne Duncan, and now Pedro Martinez. These attacks look like school closures which tear neighborhoods apart, layoffs that disproportionately affect Black educators, and the gutting of enrichment programs in schools among other offenses. 

These neoliberal policies are a form of massive stealing from the poor and giving to the rich. When public schools are shut down, their staff laid off, and their students left without a school community, the resources which funded them are funneled into privately owned charter schools and corporations which parasitize the public education system. 

In 2010, with the leadership of Karen Lewis, CTU started fighting back against the corporate looting of public schools. In 2012, the first time since 1987, CTU went on strike. They struck not just for the bread-and-butter issues of raises, hours and work conditions, but for the public good. They demanded support services, a well rounded curriculum, and fully funded facilities for Chicago's public school students, the majority of whom are Black, Chicano or Latine. 

CTU was demonized by corporate media in 2012 the same way they are now, but their victory invigorated Chicago and set the bar for unions around the country. They showed the world that unions can fight for the interests of their members and those of their community, and win.

The school privatizers hit back in 2013 when Rahm Emanuel presided over the closure of 50 schools. Emanuel’s administration also shut down six mental health clinics. These and other neoliberal decisions have contributed to Black people being forced out of the city by worsening conditions for themselves and their children. 

CTU continued to fight back by joining the community in efforts to stop school closures. One notable example is the hunger strike to save Dyett High School in 2015. Ten years later, Dyett’s boys basketball team won the Illinois State Championship.

Victories from the CTU’s 2019 contract campaign include sanctuary schools, smaller class sizes, more support staff, special education, and housing and counseling services which allow students to learn. CTU has also given immense support to community organizations in the struggles for police accountability, environmental justice, reproductive rights, immigrants rights, and many more. 

In 2023, former teacher and CTU member Brandon Johnson beat Paul Vallas in the mayoral election. This victory was won by a united movement that electrified Chicago's Black and Brown neighborhoods. That election allowed us to meet Trump's inauguration with a mayor who comes from the movement rather than one who has always marched in line with Trump's anti education agenda.

During the second Trump administration, which has brought relentless attacks on working and oppressed people, CTU’s president Stacy Davis Gates has championed the need to “build a forcefield around Chicago.” Trump has a special hatred for Chicago that he shows in words and actions, but CTU has written a playbook on how to use solidarity to defend the people from vultures like Trump.

In April, CTU landed a historic contract with hundreds of provisions for all sectors of their membership and items ensuring a more joyful, fulfilling school day for students. The agreement was ratified by an overwhelming 97% vote with 85% of CTU’s nearly 30,000 members turning out. This historic victory exposed the lies told about CTU by corporate media. In spite of claims that the union is divided and disconnected, members are united in fighting for themselves, their students, and their communities.

The progressive movement needs to continue its solidarity with CTU as they fight to enforce the contract and transform the public education system.

No coalition will agree on absolutely everything, but now is not the time to dwell on past disagreements or to demand full alignment in ideas as a condition for unity. Now is the time for united action against the flood of attacks coming from the White House.

We can beat Trump’s agenda in Chicago. We have beaten similar attacks before. We call on all progressives to take an active role in the fight, and education is a crucial field of struggle in which we all have a lot to learn from CTU. We must unite in using the wins of the past to defend ourselves in the present and build the future our children deserve.

Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression Labor Committee 

Chanel Crittendon, co chair 

Kobi Guillory, co chair