CTU Webinar Media Advisory

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Virginia Rodino, virginia@labor4sustainability.org

April 15, 2025

Labor Network for Sustainability is kicking off “Earth Day to May Day” organizing by hosting a webinar featuring the Chicago Teachers Union. Members of CTU will share how they led a year-long contract campaign where labor and community won on many issues including climate justice and public sector resilience.

WHAT: Earth Day to May Day Webinar: Contract Wins for Climate
WHO: Chicago Teachers Union and Labor Network for Sustainability
WHEN: April 21, 5PM PT / 8PM ET.

Chicago teachers, parents, and community members who have fought and won for climate and environmental justice will share how they led on climate justice, public sector resilience and common good bargaining. Participants will learn how they can also take action to defend public school communities, and a livable planet.

SPOKESPEOPLE:

  • Nick Limbeck, Bilingual Elementary Teacher, CTU Climate Justice Committee

  • Ayesha Qazi-Lampert, Environmental Science Teacher, CTU Climate Justice Committee

  • Lauren Bianchi, High School History Teacher, CTU Green Schools Organizer

BACKGROUND:

Chicago—After more than eleven months of bargaining, working without a contract throughout the entire school year, and for the first time in more than 15 years of doing so without a strike or strike vote, the Chicago Teachers Union announced on April 1 its big bargaining team made up of rank-and-file members approved a tentative agreement with Chicago Public Schools.

The 2025 proposed contract builds upon several past contracts won by CTU in 2012, 2016, and 2019. The 2012 strike won the air conditioning that kept CPS open during the back-to-school heatwave at the beginning of the school year. The 2016 contract established the model of 20 sustainable community schools, a program that helped to stabilize and resource schools.

In the 2025 negotiations, Chicago teachers have won their first-ever tentative agreements on Green Schools and Climate Justice, giving teachers more control over the buildings they work in and ensuring that all students can learn in school buildings that are healthy, safe, and environmentally sustainable. The contract charts a new direction of investment and expansion of sustainable community including:

  1. A more than tripling of the number of Sustainable Community Schools, from 20 to 70, over the course of the agreement.

  2. A Green Schools initiation of additional resources and collaboration to remediate lead, asbestos and mold in aging school buildings while upgrading to green energy with environmentally sustainable technology, materials and practices.

  3. Creation of a joint Green Schools and Climate Preparedness Committee that forces the district to work with the union to secure specific funding for green facilities initiatives and collaborate on an updated Climate Action Plan by the end of the 25-26 SY.

  4. Winning access for all staff members to a monthly facilities report of open and closed work orders at every school, available to all staff members.

  5. Support for creating learning pathways leading to green jobs for high school students after graduation (ie: electricians, pipefitters, plumbers, etc.).

  6. A commitment to collaborate with unions such as the IBEW and industry partners to create more pre-apprenticeship opportunities for high school students.

  7. A student and community workforce agreement with the trades to identify future opportunities for CPS students and graduates to participate in facility renovations.

  8. Resources to teach about environmental and climate awareness across grade levels.

  9. Participation in a joint initiative with the City of Chicago to remove any lead based pipe material in the city service lines servicing schools.

  10. Replacement of any plumbing fixtures that cause drinking water to exceed the IDPH lead action level of 5 parts per billion (5 ppb) after flushing the fixture.

  11. Creation of a joint School Meals and Nutrition Committee aimed at providing healthy, high-quality food to all students. The committee will collaborate with a Youth Advisory Council made up of students.

  12. Implementing scratch kitchen capabilities in school cafeterias at 25 schools.

  13. Expanding lunchroom composting in 25 schools.

  14. Through the joint Green Schools and Climate Preparedness Committee, the new contract language opens the door for green building upgrades and removal of toxins including:

      • Addressing lead in drinking water by installing up to 200 filtered-water drinking fountains.

      • Expanding indoor air-quality monitoring.

      • Improving classroom temperature regulation by replacing windows and upgrading HVAC equipment (e.g. heat pumps).

      • Implementing stormwater mitigation strategies to help reduce community flooding.

      • Advancing building electrification and adopting renewable energy sources, including installing solar panels at 30 schools and heat pumps.

      • Constructing new school facilities to meet LEED Silver-certified standards or higher.

      • Developing and implementing composting practices at as many schools as possible.

      • Establishing school rain gardens and permeable surfaces in addition to projects already planned through the Space to Grow program.

 

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Labor Network for Sustainability is working with educator unions and other labor across the country to organize actions connecting the importance of Earth Day to May Day for workers and the planet and spotlighting how labor and community lead on climate justice, public sector resilience, and for the common good.