Leaked Recording Reveals Covert Campaign to Undermine Chicago Teachers Union
Headlines:
"Make The Union Itself Toxic": Recording Reveals Think Tank's Years-Long Plot to Erode Public Support for Teachers Union
Leaked Presentation Reveals Years-Long Smear Campaign Against Chicago Teachers Union to Divide Democratic Voters
"Make The Union Itself Toxic": Right-Wing Operatives Target Blue Cities to Kill Progressive Policies
Lede:
A marketing firm tied to the Illinois Policy Institute (IPI) has spent years waging a campaign to sabotage the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), seeking to fracture Democratic unity and derail progressive policies, according to a recording of a private video presentation obtained by Source Code. “You have to make the entity itself toxic,” a strategist said during the May presentation, “so that everything they touch is toxic.” The recording outlined plans to replicate the tactic nationwide by exploiting wedge issues to splinter Democratic strongholds.
The details:
Speaking privately to members of a network called Alder, representatives from the Illinois Policy Institute (IPI) and the public affairs firm Iron Light described how they drove down Chicago residents' support of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) from 70 to 28 percent through targeted digital, text, and media campaigns.
As part of their strategy, Iron Light identified hundreds of thousands of Chicago Democrats with children in public schools and targeted them over several years with ads attacking CTU and Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CTU organizer.
According to IPI, their attacks on the CTU and Johnson helped pave the way for its 2024 victories, including the defeat of CTU-endorsed school board candidates and the rejection of a CTU-backed ballot measure to fund homeless services.
Iron Light and IPI also claim credit for defeating Mayor Johnson's proposal to close the city's budget gap by increasing property taxes. On the Alder network presentation, Iron Light co-founder and IPI vice president Austin Berg said the group mobilized its audience in response to the plan. "Over 4,000 community members contacted their aldermen to say, 'vote no'," Berg said. "That was with zero paid spend." He pointed to the outcome -- a unanimous 50-0 City Council vote against the proposal -- as evidence of the campaign's success.
Why it matters:
The Illinois Policy Institute (IPI), a right-wing think tank affiliated with the State Policy Network, has long attacked the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). The newly obtained recording reveals that its efforts were part of a larger plan to chip away at the city's Democratic voter base and undermine support for progressive policies.
Founded in 2002, the IPI has led a long-running campaign targeting public-sector unions. Its efforts culminated in a pivotal role in the 2018 Supreme Court case Janus v. AFSCME, in which the Court struck down mandatory agency fees for non-union public employees. IPI's litigation partner, the Liberty Justice Center, co-represented Mark Janus alongside the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The ruling delivered a major blow to organized labor, significantly reshaping the landscape for unionized workers across the country. A few months after the ruling, Janus took a job at IPI.
Throughout the years, conservative mega-donors have given to IPI, including Donors Trust, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation, Dunn’s Foundation for the Advancement of Right Thinking, and the Charles Koch Institute.
Iron Light is already working to replicate its Chicago playbook in other Democratic-led cities, using wedge issues to fracture liberal coalitions and shift political dynamics at the state level. On the same private call, Iron Light CEO Ryan Green said the firm has been working on district attorney races in Seattle, where law enforcement messaging has been "a huge lever for us to pull." Green also said the firm is preparing to shape public debate around data centers in southern states, like Memphis, where local community members and environmental groups have raised concerns about the projects. "I think you're going to see interesting shift around energy in that conversation," he said. According to Green, the goal isn't merely to shift blue cities more red, but rather, spark change that can affect the rest of the state.
IPI and Iron Light have maintained a close working relationship for years. Austin Berg, one of the co-founders of Iron Light and the vice president of marketing for IPI, spoke openly about their coordinated efforts during the recent Alder call. IRS filings show IPI paid Iron Light a total of over $1.8 million for marketing services in 2022 and 2023. Though it is not entirely uncommon for nonprofits to hire companies controlled by their employees for contracting work, Berg has personally profited from campaigns targeting CTU, which he accuses of corruption and financial misconduct.
Key quotes:
"One, you have to make the union itself toxic. Otherwise, it's whack-a-mole. And I think that the big lesson from what Austin walked through is that we cut the head off at the source, right? So with Madigan, take the head off. Same thing with Chicago Teachers Union; you have to make the entity itself toxic so that everything they touch is toxic."
"Next, we had our first school board elections ever in the city of Chicago this last November, and research from Terry Mo, the guy I talked about earlier, shows that if a teachers union supports a candidate in a school board election, they win 70% of their races on average. Again, we were able to use Johnson and the CTU in communications around those races, CTU lost 70% of the contested school board races. There were nine contested seats and they only won three. So, they lost 66-70% of these those contested races. That has huge downstream effects."
"It was ultimately our targets were going to be Chicago Democrats with children, so people who had children in the public schools. And there were also, amazingly -- and we'd be happy to do this analysis in your city any big city that you're near, or even small city -- but there was 400,000 aligned voters. These are people who would be, you know, pro low-tax environment, pro-public safety, pro-school choice, who have voted in a presidential election before, but have never voted in a municipal election in Chicago. So, it's just this completely untapped voter block that should be be able to be activated."
"There was a proposal from the CTU for a $300 million property tax hike in the city of Chicago at the end of last year. We activated our audience against that issue. Over 4,000 community members contacted their aldermen to say vote no. That was with zero paid spend. The results, the first ever 50-0 vote in the history of the city of Chicago. This was all 50 aldermen in our city voting no against the property tax hike pushed by the biggest political spender in the city, which is pretty remarkable."
"And starting with the cities, it's a lower lift to start there. And it's closer to people's homes and they feel it a lot more. So if you can do some work to turn the tides in those cities then it can affect the rest of the state."
"I mean, our primary focus as an agency right now is selling into these blue cities and focusing on these blue cities. You're starting to see a shift in our industry of the DC firms coming to the states. They're recognizing there's not much you can get done in Washington and they're understanding the importance of the states, and we're even going more local. So the blue cities focus for us is where we're going to have a lot of growth going forward... That's what I think you're going to see, you're going to see a lot more activity in the state level, which is good for us, which is good for business."
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