Cahokia school district union rejects proposed contract. Here’s why

The Cahokia Federation of Teachers voted down a tentative agreement that the union’s bargaining team and the school district reached earlier this month.

Nearly two-thirds of the union that’s made up of teachers, service employees and secretaries rejected the terms of the contract, said Ray Roskos, the field service director at the Illinois Federation of Teachers, who’s been assisting with negotiations.

“The district needs to do better. That’s what the membership, I think, has told them,” Roskos said of the vote.

In final results Monday, 137 union members voted against the proposal, while 70 voted for it.

A 5% increase in the baseline salary on the union’s pay scale and an additional $1,000 for employees’ medical insurance plans proved to be sticking points. Union membership believed they weren’t enough, especially if insurance premiums keep getting more expensive, Roskos said.

Currently, there are 80 open teaching positions across the district, and the union would like their positions to be more competitive to peer districts, Roskos said. The change to the pay schedule means only the bottom increases by 5% and more tenured teachers would see smaller yearly raises.

“This contract should be about retaining and recruiting teachers,” Roskos said. “We heard overwhelmingly at our membership meetings that this contract doesn't do nearly enough to recruit and retain the professional teachers that they have and that they want to attract.”

The rebuke means the union and Cahokia School District will either return to the bargaining table under federal mediation or the two parties could take steps toward declaring an impasse. Those next steps are not immediately clear.

The union and district had reached the now-rejected deal in their first session with an arbitrator from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. If an impasse is declared, both parties would be required to post their best and final offers on the Illinois Educational Relations Board’s website, so the public can see where they stand.

“We believe we should be back at the table,” Roskos said. “Our membership didn't approve the contract, and we should let them know what the hot topics are and go from there.”

Superintendent Curtis McCall Jr. could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday.

The unionized employees of the district worked without a new contract for the entire 2025-2026 school year.

Other proposals that required teachers to make lesson plans available to the principal once a week and another that eliminated language preventing administrators from raising salaries at greater rates than what is offered to union members are also problems for his members, Roskos said.

The ongoing contraction negotiations have come as the union made corruption allegations against administrators.

As bargaining stalled earlier this year, union leadership alleged that, for years, multiple employees were being paid without evidence of working and the assistant superintendent was paid far above his contracted salary. The union also claimed the district paid for an employee’s supplemental Medicare coverage without what it considers proper documentation.

McCall has consistently denied the union’s allegations.