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. Bloch, an attorney representing the Chicago Teachers Union. “They’re just trying to force the publication of the audits to the general public so that they can try to find things to attack the union over.”
Members of the union and its allies told The Intercept they see the House inquiry as part of a coordinated attack.
“Our perspective is that the Illinois Policy Institute is essentially a state chapter of Project 2025, and their sole purpose has been to undermine Stacy Davis Gates’s leadership and the thousands of Chicago educators that she represents,” a Chicago Teachers Union spokesperson said on Wednesday. “And so now MAGA Republicans here in Washington have taken the bait.”
The size and power of the Chicago Teachers Union makes it an especially appealing target for right-wing entities looking to damage the labor movement and public education in one big blow, said Jacob Remes, a labor historian at New York University.
“If what you’re trying to do is bust unions, you go after the big ones.”
“In most states … the statewide teachers union is, if not the biggest, among the biggest unions in the state,” Remes said. “And so if what you’re trying to do is bust unions, you go after the big ones.”
The union said it is far more transparent than the organizations accusing it of malfeasance. “One of the ironies is that unions are the most regulated entities in the United States. Everyone is looking at their finances all the time,” said Kurt Hilgendorf, deputy chief of staff at the Chicago Teachers Union.
Funding for the Illinois Policy Institute is fairly opaque. According to ProPublica, the think tank received roughly $890,000 and $1.4 million from DonorsTrust, a donor-advised fund specifically for conservative donors. Contributors to donor-advised funds are not legally required to disclose their identities, which makes them an effective way for donors to remain anonymous. DeSmog, a group tracking major polluters and their financial backers, found that IPI also received roughly $2 million from Donors Capital Fund, another conservative donor-advised fund.
The publicly available donors have deep ties to the MAGA world. According to DeSmog, the Illinois Policy Institute has received over $4.5 million from the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation, which is run by Trump megadonor Richard Uihlein, and $1.1 million from the Mercer family, which donated millions to elect Donald Trump.
The Illinois Policy Institute did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
An attorney for the Liberty Justice Center said its work is nonpartisan and that it does not coordinate directly with the Illinois Policy Institute.
“This case has nothing to do with partisan politics. LJC has represented clients from across the political spectrum and has filed lawsuits against both Republican and Democratic government officials,” wrote Ángel Valencia, senior counsel at Liberty Justice Center. “As an independent nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, Liberty Justice Center does not coordinate operations, strategy, or fundraising with IPI.”
The group also denied any coordination with Republican lawmakers. “Our organization has had zero contact with the House Committee as it relates to their actions,” wrote Valencia. “Our lawsuit is completely separate and unrelated. To insinuate otherwise is false, misleading and desperate.”
Illinois Democrats have also raised concerns about the Republican-led committee’s use of the Illinois Policy Institute as their sole source for the investigation. In a letter released Thursday, the Illinois representatives argue that the union has provided “financial reports, consistent with their obligations.”
“Given the spurious nature of the claims and that the sole citations are sourced from the Illinois Policy Institute, a locally controversial organization previously registered as a lobbying entity until 2013, we are concerned that the inquiry itself is overtly partisan in nature,” wrote a group of Illinois Democrats, including Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., in a letter to the House Education and Workforce Committee.
The Trump administration, Republicans in Congress, and their billionaire-backed groups have been relentless in their targeting of unions and public education, Remes pointed out.
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“The Trump administration has been anti-union in every regard,” Remes said, noting that teachers unions are often a conservative target, which comes on top of the administration’s dismantling of the Department of Education.
“Schools are really important if what you’re trying to do is undermine the idea of equality,” Remes added. “So public education has been a target from the right for forever.”
Noting the Trump administration’s largely racist fixation on Chicago, Remes pointed out that the fact that the union is run by a Black woman makes it a particularly appealing target.
Davis Gates, the CTU president, said that it’s clear the union is “powerful,” which is why it’s in the crosshairs.
“If you look at the [Illinois Policy Institute] and the MAGA movement, what I think you’ll see is this intense focus on refusing to fund health care, refusing to fund public education, refusing to fund the social good, the common good,” Davis Gates told The Intercept. “Our union doubles down on those things.”
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