Chicago teachers and firefighters hold solidarity rally to demand decent contracts

Chicago, IL – Around 80 educators, firefighters and community members gathered on Monday, March 24, to demand decent contracts for the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) Local 1 and the Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2. The members of both unions have been working under expired contracts; the teachers for eight months and the firefighters for over three and a half years.

The “Rally for Our Contracts” began with speeches in front of the Chicago Fire Department’s Engine 103 Station in the city’s Near West Side. Patrick Cleary, president of Fire Fighters Local 2, emphasized the need for facilities updates in both Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Fire Department. “[Since] 1987 that thing hasn’t changed,” Cleary said, pointing to the station behind him. “They’re finally putting in female accommodations in 2025.”

CTU President Stacy Davis Gates followed this with a call for contracts that place the city’s essential workers and their working conditions “not last on the priority list but first on the priority list.” After the rally at the station, participants lined up behind a fire engine and marched toward the nearby Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, operated by Chicago Public Schools. They emphasized the critical services that both union’s workers provide the city, with signs reading, “We put out fires every day!” and “Take care of the people who take care of Chicago!”

These messages echoed an earlier joint statement of Friday, March 21, in which the unions emphasized the indispensability of their work for people of Chicago, calling for the city to respond with the “security of a contract” as well as the “resources and staffing they need to adequately serve the public.”

Both unions attribute delays in negotiations to the proper city officials not attending bargaining sessions. “They don’t send the decision-makers to negotiations,” Cleary said during a joint press conference by the two unions on Friday, March 21. “If you’re not the decision-maker, you shouldn’t be in the room then.”

With negotiations stalled, Cleary says the department is short-staffed and working with outdated equipment that poses safety concerns. Furthermore, the contract expiration means firefighters have not won a pay raise in over four years.

Meanwhile, the CTU has criticized the chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Pedro Martinez, for “chronic absenteeism.” Martinez has not attended a single bargaining session since they began eleven months ago, in April 2024. Martinez further stalled negotiations by filing a restraining order to prevent CTU from negotiating directly with the board of education in December 2024. While CTU has made progress at the bargaining table with Martinez’s team at CPS, when it comes to closing the deal, Stacy Davis Gates said, “We have to find someone.”

With CTU having secured hundreds of items, the final sticking points are changes to make the teacher evaluation system more equitable, pay raises for veteran teachers, and 20 minutes of increased continuous prep time for elementary teachers, after Rahm Emanuel’s administration reduced this time by 30 minutes in 2012.

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