UUPMI stands in solidarity with striking Chicago teachers

The Unitarian Universalist Prison Ministry of Illinois is in solidarity with the 25,000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and the 7,000 members of Service Employees International Union Local 73, and public-support staff in their contract negotiations with the new Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago School Board.  

We echo their just demands for:

• Smaller class sizes
• Sustainable community schools with full wrap around services
• Access to a broad and diverse curriculum including art, music, world languages, computer literacy, and physical education
• Fully-staffed libraries in all schools
• Hiring of hundreds more social workers, school nurses, counselors, therapists, psychologists, special education aides and thousands of teachers in order to fully support students
• Educator-directed, not principal-directed prep time
• Adequate compensation with no increase in cost of benefits and to lift the lowest-paid workers out of poverty

At its heart, this strike is a struggle for racial and economic justice. 90% of CPS students are black and brown; over 75% are classified by CPS as “economically disadvantaged”. This strike is a refusal to allow business as usual. We must not continue to pour more and more money into the criminalization, punishment, and imprisonment of black and brown communities while divesting from schools that serve black and brown students.  On October 23rd the mayor released a proposed 2020 City Budget showing a $120 million increase for Chicago Police Department and a $100,000 decrease for the Department of Family and Support Services. As so many before us have said - that ain’t right.

We affirm the vision of the 2015 Unitarian Universalist General Assembly who passed the Black Lives Matter Action of Immediate Witness (2015) which calls on us to support racial justice organizing to support intersectional campaigns, and to act up against the school-to-prison pipeline. We do this by being in solidarity with the CTU’s significant Black leadership, and with teachers and other public-support staff who care for the youth of this city and who know best what they need to thrive. We invite UU congregations in Chicago and beyond to join us in publicly supporting the demands of CTU & SEIU.  

Towards a future with the schools Chicago youth deserve!

Steering Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Prison Ministry of Illinois​