First Day of School, Fewer Custodians – Workers Rallied Outside Flagship High School Against Devastating Chicago Public School Cuts
CPS expects 1,950 custodians to clean 634 schools – roughly 3 custodians for each school, setting custodians up for failure and jeopardizing our students’ health and safety.
CHICAGO – On Monday, August 18, the first day that CPS students returned to the classroom, more than 100 SEIU custodians, CPS parents, and allies rallied outside Jones Commercial College Prep, fighting for fully staffed schools. This comes after Chicago Public Schools’ devastating decision to displace more than 1,200 SEIU Local 1 custodial jobs, leaving schools across the city, including Jones College Prep, understaffed, unprepared, and potentially unsafe. With no clear transition plan, CPS has jeopardized the cleanliness, health, and safety of our schools and students from day one.
Chicago Public Schools is in the middle of a budget crisis of its own making, and CPS has chosen to balance the books on the backs of its lowest-paid workers: the mostly Black and Brown custodians who keep our schools clean and safe. They are doing it at the direct expense of our students’ health and safety. With schools already struggling to meet basic cleaning standards, this mass cut will make matters worse. Our students deserve clean, fully staffed schools – not understaffed, dirty buildings that put their health at risk from day one. CPS’s choice is clear: it is punishing Black and Brown workers, destabilizing communities, and putting children in harm’s way rather than fixing the real problems in its budget.
This current path won’t fix CPS’s budget crisis; in fact, it risks pushing the district into even deeper financial trouble, even before the August 13th budget proposal that seeks to force CPS to pay over $90 million in interest payments to bond investors. For decades, CPS has saved money by working with privatized custodians, a practice dating back to the early 1990s. SEIU Local 1 custodians have long offered a cost-effective model: delivering quality services while earning family-sustaining wages, receiving full-family healthcare at a fraction of the cost of CPS-provided plans, and being covered by a fully funded pension system supported by private employers.
“As kids return back to the classroom today, I worry about the health and safety of our students come September 30 – the day CPS has decided to cut hundreds of Local 1 custodians who keep our schools clean and safe,” said Alderman Lamont Robinson. “CPS wants to limit “cuts to the classroom” but custodians are essential to those classrooms, and to imply otherwise is dishonest. I stand with Local 1 custodians every step of the way and hope CPS has the courage to do right by these workers.”
“As you know, today is the first day our kids, grandkids, and students are heading back to school. This year might feel a little different to them because CPS and CEO King decided to displace 1,200 custodians who keep these schools sanitized, clean, and safe,” said SEIU Local 1 Vice President and Institutional Director Greg King. “Chicago Public Schools is in the middle of a budget crisis of its own making, and CPS has chosen to balance the books on the backs of its lowest-paid workers: the mostly Black and Brown custodians who keep our schools clean and safe.”
“I have worked as a custodian for Chicago Public Schools 29 years. I knew the students well; we had a bond,” said Duncan Ellington, SEIU Local 1 CPS custodian at Henry Clay Elementary School. “This was more than a job to me, it was my community. I have two grandkids in the district right now. Chicago Public Schools Board has decided to dismantle everything that my coworkers and I have built and were a part of. I will be left without this important piece of my life, without my job, without health insurance, and without the ability to pay for my house, car, and for even basic needs. And my grandkids will be left going to a school with unsanitary conditions.”
“CPS deciding to lay me and my coworkers off is disappointing and proves that they don't value us or our many years of service. When COVID hit, we were essential, but now they treat us as disposable because they need to figure out a way to fix their budget,” said Micaela Zarate, SEIU Local 1 CPS custodian at Foster Park Elementary. “Do you know what it is like to wake up one day after 29 years and be afraid that you won't have an income, that you won't have health insurance, that you don't know if someone else will hire you, don't know how you will pay your next bill? That is our reality. So while CPS board members sleep safe and sound at night, we are wide awake, wondering what our future holds.”
“I have built up my seniority, I have given so much of my life to Chicago Public Schools, and now I don’t know if I will be left with anything,” said Dolphin Ware, SEIU Local 1 CPS custodian at South Loop Elementary School. “I have a 7-year old grandson at Chicago Public Schools who not only depends on me, but depends on going to a clean and sanitary school. Chicago Public Schools is showing they don’t care about the wellbeing of the students, or the workers who have put in years of dedication to the Chicago Public School District. On top of that, the hours they are proposing for the few workers that will be rehired do not take into account the safety of workers – ending work at 11:30pm and finding a way home at that time in neighborhoods which are already unsafe is putting workers’ lives at risk. CPS is destroying people’s lives. The Chicago Public Schools Board cannot claim to care about anyone except themselves after their decisions.”