One of the largest and most politically active public workers’ unions in the country is facing an audit from the Department of Labor in what the union sees as an attack fueled by conservative dark-money groups aligned with the Trump administration.
A letter the DOL sent this week to the Chicago Teachers Union, obtained by The Intercept, requests a meeting with the union to “obtain detailed information about the union and its financial records, bookkeeping practices, and internal controls.”
Organizations can be chosen for auditing for a number of reasons, but the letter’s timing raised suspicion within the teachers union and with outside experts. It came on the eve of the deadline for the union to turn over financial documents to a House committee targeting the union based on claims circulated by an Illinois right-wing anti-union group.
The Chicago Teachers Union has been one of the organizations at the forefront of the fight against the Trump administration’s deportation efforts, making it a clear target for the administration’s attacks. The group has vocally criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions, provided “defend your rights” training for families and students, and formed “sidewalk solidarity” lines to help students and their families safely avoid immigration agents. The union’s president, Stacy Davis Gates, who is Black, has been a target of the right since she took office in 2022.
Davis Gates said her union has worked hard to “support working families, Black students, immigrant students, Brown students” and win accommodations for transgender and queer students. “That’s our work. And so those things seem to be in clear opposition to [how] the MAGA administration is moving.”
Both the DOL and the House Committee on Education and Workforce are demanding documents mandated by the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, which requires the union to provide its members with financial audits. In November, the House committee sent the union a letter accusing it of failing to provide the documentation from fiscal years 2019 to 2024.
The union complied with the House committee’s request but objected to this characterization in a letter sent on Friday, calling out the request’s “similarity” to litigation from outside groups seeking the union’s financial records.
The House inquiry exclusively cites sources connected with the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think tank with deep ties to Republican megadonors. John Tillman, an influential conservative activist, relaunched the group in 2007 and founded several other conservative groups, including the Liberty Justice Center — which is currently suing the Chicago Teachers’ for its financial audits.
The union fears that the audits could could become accessible to the public, including the Illinois Policy Institute and Liberty Justice Center.
The union shared its independent auditors’ reports from 2018 to 2024 with The Intercept and said that it has been a faithful steward of teachers’ dues and increased revenue under Davis Gates’s leadership.
“The reality is that the union has always shared its audits with its members,” said Robert E.