On a day that would normally include excitement for a new school year, custodians who recently had their contracts terminated by Chicago Public Schools instead rallied outside Jones College Preparatory High School on the district’s opening day and criticized the layoffs.
Over 1,200 custodians who worked in the district under privatized contracts through the Service Employees International Union Local 1 found out their jobs had been eliminated earlier this month without prior notice. The cuts will make it harder for schools across the district to remain clean for children, according to SEIU Local Union 1 Vice President Izabela Miltko-Ivkovich.
“Do right by all of our kids. Make sure these schools are clean. Make sure there is a just transition, and don’t do this behind closed doors,” Miltko-Ivkovich said. “We want to be at the table. We want to make sure that our custodians are at the table. … They don’t have a bright future with your decision, and we need to stand together to make sure that our custodians keep their jobs.”
While a Local 1 news release said some workers will be rehired through the district and be represented by Service Employees International Union Local 73, the union that represents more than 37,000 public service workers in Illinois and northwest Indiana including some CPS employees, it is unclear how many custodial jobs are available or the next steps for workers who have been cut. This is the union’s second rally in less than a week — the SEIU held a rally before the Board of Education’s Aug. 13 meeting.
This uncertainty is weighing on custodians, who are unsure if they will have jobs by the time their private contracts end Sept. 30.
“You see how many years (of work) they have, the custodians, 11, 20, 25. Yet, they have no real future in mind with what CPS is doing to our custodians, and more importantly, to our kids,” Miltko-Ivkovich said. “How do you keep schools clean with less custodians in our schools? I don’t think it’s possible.”
The custodial cuts come as CPS attempts to reduce a $734 million budget deficit. SEIU Local 1 also protested the cuts last week ahead of the Board of Education meeting, advocating for no more cuts as the school year begins. Similar sentiments were echoed Monday, with multiple custodians affected by the layoffs expressing frustration with the decision at the news conference and saying that fixing the budget deficit should not come at the expense of student safety or their jobs.
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“Their budget is not accounting for the minds and the environment of our students and our children. What do you expect for tomorrow’s future when you don’t care about today’s children?” said Duncan Ellington, a recently laid-off custodian who worked at Clay Elementary School in Hegewisch for 29 years. “Stop acting like you care, but your actions show you don’t.”
Dolphine Ware, an SEIU member who worked as a custodian for 29 years, said that the budget deficit will not be solved by cutting custodial positions.
“They are treating us like we are disposable,” Ware said. “Why do we have to suffer because CPS messed up the money? CPS is destroying people’s lives.”
The Board of Education is required to adopt a balanced budget proposal by Aug. 29. CPS recently proposed a budget that was dismissed by some board members because it did not include reimbursing the city for a $175 million pension payment that includes pensions of nonteaching staff, such as SEIU Local 73 custodians.
The loss of workers will be felt even with the addition of some custodians under SEIU 73, the union’s CPS Division Director Trumaine Reeves said. He added that all CPS workers, not just custodians, will pay the price for the cuts.
“Removing the jobs from one local (union), just to give to another local, all that does is undermine our shared values and weakens labor solidarity,” Reeves said. “Now is the time for the City Council, the mayor and the Board of Education, to act like leaders and put children and the workers first. These are tough times, but our union members are tougher.”
Amid the group of over 40 union members in matching purple shirts chanting “no more layoffs” at CPS, about a dozen workers in street clothes chanted back for SEIU Local 1 to listen to them and held up different signs advocating for the union to uphold their contracts.
The group, called the Coalition for Justice for SEIU Janitors, came to the news conference to confront the union, which it called “chummy” with Mayor Brandon Johnson and “absent” since the layoffs in a recent Facebook post.
The workers called for SEIU Local 1 to provide clarity around when affected members might return to work and to uphold their contract with the union members, which ends in 2027.
“The union after all is the people and not the union bureaucrats who spend more time with the politicians laughing than with the workers organizing,” the post reads.
Multiple union members seemed confused by the Coalition for Justice for SEIU Janitors and their chanting. Miltko-Ivkovich ceded the microphone to the group after they chanted over SEIU Local 1 speakers, but they did not speak. The group continued to exchange chants back and forth with SEIU Local 1 members throughout the news conference.
Both Miltko-Ivkovich and Reeves emphasized to the crowd the need for union workers to tackle the layoffs together instead of as opponents.
“For decades, Board (of Education) and private custodians have cleaned together, but now it’s time that we stand up and that we fight together,” Reeves said.