The Chicago Teachers Union is cooperating with a federal inquiry into allegations that it is keeping financial audits from its members, though a lawyer representing the union argues “it’s a waste of time.”
The Republican-led U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce sent a letter to CTU President Stacy Davis Gates last week accusing the union of failing to provide “complete financial audits” to members since 2020.
“This failure to disclose financial information strips dues-paying members of their basic right to understand how their money is spent,” the letter states. “Every dollar paid by workers should serve their interests, not those of a select few operating in the shadows.”
The letter also alleges that Davis Gates maligned a member’s request for published audits as a “racist ‘dog whistle,’” citing social media posts from Davis Gates that were shared by a member of the conservative Illinois Policy Institute. In one post, Davis Gates writes that the financial probes were treating her like a “thief.”
Top members of the House committee asked the CTU to provide five years of financial documents, saying the information would help lawmakers potentially make changes to the federal law that requires labor unions to disclose certain financial information to their members.
Michael Bromwich, an attorney with Washington, D.C.-based law firm Steptoe, is representing the CTU in the matter. He said the union will cooperate with the investigation and respond by Dec. 22, but he wasn’t concerned. He said the audit reports are already available for its rank-and-file to see at the union office.
“It is a waste of time, and it’s a waste of resources, but we will be good citizens and we will be responding with any responsive documents,” Bromwich told the Sun-Times and WBEZ. “There is much less here than meets the eye.”
Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said the letter was “exceptional” and he couldn’t recall another local union fielding this kind of inquiry from Congress in recent years.
Bruno said it’s important to remember the political context in which this inquiry is taking place. Davis Gates and other CTU leaders have been vocal against the Trump administration, admonishing it for threatening funding for Chicago Public Schools over programs such as the Black Student Success plan.
In a response to the committee on Monday, Bromwich accused the House committee of making conclusions before reviewing evidence.
He also questioned whether the inquiry was being used as a “stalking horse” to covertly gather information for CTU members represented by a conservative law firm who filed a civil lawsuit over similar allegations.
“We expect your assurance that this is not the case,” Bromwich wrote.
A handful of CTU members filed a lawsuit demanding financial records last year in Cook County court. They accused the union of failing to provide annual audits of its finances since 2020, in violation of its bylaws.
Lawyers for the CTU have asked to dismiss the case, arguing that the union has since provided the records sought by the lawsuit. They say continuing the lawsuit amounts to a “fishing expedition.”
In court filings, the union explains that while its bylaws require it to publish a financial summary for members, the full details of the audit can only be viewed in person in the union’s office because they may contain private information.
Until 2020, audit reports were included in a publication the union mailed to members, but the summary is now shared through an online portal.
Since the lawsuit was filed, the CTU has published multiple summary reports for members via the online portal. The union said it didn’t share them earlier because they weren’t ready. They include the CTU’s current assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses. One of the plaintiffs reviewed the full audits in person in February, according to court records.
But the plaintiffs were not satisfied with the level of details in the reports, and said they lacked independent certification, court records show.
The CTU members who filed the lawsuit are being represented by lawyers for the right-leaning Liberty Justice Center. In 2018, the group brought the Janus v. AFSCME case before the Supreme Court and won a landmark ruling stating that public sector workers could not be required to pay collective bargaining fees. It was a major blow to labor unions.
Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, said the organization is continuing the lawsuit because the documents the CTU has produced so far aren’t complete.
“We’re interested in finding more about the audits that they’ve produced in discovery to make sure that these are legitimate,” Schwab said.