
CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) President Stacy Davis Gates emphatically stood by her organization’s contract demands, which include social justice issues that go beyond the classroom, on the latest edition of WBBM’s “At Issue” program.
Her remarks came as conservative critics have tried to sound the alarm about how much CTU’s contract demands would cost local taxpayers. One group suggested CTU's contract would cost taxpayers more than $10 billion, but Davis Gates dismissed the criticism.
“Forgive me, again, if conservatives pushing back on educating immigrant children, Black children, children who live in poverty, doesn’t make my anxiety go up,” she said. “That’s what they’re supposed to say.”
Beyond the traditional pay, benefits and working conditions, CTU’s latest contract demands included more affordable housing, green and sustainable school buildings and sanctuary schools.
Davis Gates said such concerns are justified because teachers live in Chicago. She’s a South Side resident, for example.
“I know what it means to, you know, figure out how to go to a store in someone else’s community because the stores in my community don’t have something,” she said. “I understand what it means to live across the street from a vacant space that used to have a house there and a family there.”
She added that children who are homeless have difficulty functioning in the classrooms.
“It does mean something when there are 20,000 classified unhoused young people in this city, because it means a lack of stability for our city,” she said. “That’s why we are going to put forward proposals that will compel the CHA to move those families to the top of the list and have a timeline to put them in homes.”
Davis Gates said she wants the public to see how and why these issues are on the table.
Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates is the guest on WBBM’s “At Issue” program, which airs every Sunday at 9:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. Listen live on the free Audacy app.
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