Lunchroom workers block Downtown street in protest as contract talks with CPS stall

Sixty-one-year-old Kimberly Penson gets on the bus by 4:45 a.m. so she can make eggs, bagels or biscuits before the first bell rings for the elementary students she calls “her babies.”

And then, as the sole cook at her school, she turns to preparing lunch, barely sitting down until she leaves at 3 p.m.

Penson is part of the fabric of Greene Elementary School in McKinley Park. When former students see her out and about they often exclaim, “Oh, hey, Miss Kim!”

“They jump out of their cars and they hug me,” she said. “I think that’s wonderful because they recognize who I am and what I did for them.”

But Penson, who has worked for Chicago Public Schools for 21 years and makes an annual salary of about $34,000, said she feels deeply disrespected by the school district’s leadership. She and her colleagues, who are represented by the union Unite Here Local 1, have been negotiating a contract for more than 11 months.

To “sound the alarm” on what they see as unfair and unequal wages, about 250 workers and their supporters held a protest Thursday afternoon at which two dozen of them — including Penson — sat down on Madison Street outside the school district’s downtown headquarters as an act of civil disobedience. Chicago police officers quickly detained the workers and escorted them away to cheers from their fellow union members, who later chanted “we will be back.” The union said they were quickly released and ticketed for pedestrian traffic violations.

The rally started at Daley Plaza before workers wearing shirts that read, “We feed Chicago’s children,” marched to CPS’ offices, where a monthly Board of Education meeting had let out.

The two biggest sticking points in contract talks, according to Unite Here: wages and staffing levels.

On Wednesday, a CPS spokesperson said both sides agreed earlier this month to call in a federal mediator, who typically intervenes when talks have stalled to prevent a strike.

“CPS remains committed to reaching a fair and sustainable agreement,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement. “A neutral third party will help ensure that negotiations proceed productively. CPS looks forward to working with the mediator to resolve outstanding issues in the best interest of our employees and the students we serve.”

Lunchroom workers, including cooks, porters who clean kitchens and attendants who serve food, are among the lowest paid full-time workers in the school district. Their average salaries range from about $23,400 to $37,400, according to CPS’ employee roster from last month. Federal poverty levels range from $15,960 for individuals to $33,000 for a family of four in 2026.

An analysis by the Chicago Sun-Times earlier this year identified CPS among the top 10 employers statewide in terms of the number of their workers who receive SNAP food assistance. In a 2025 survey ahead of contract negotiations, Unite Here found that about 22% of lunchroom workers received SNAP benefits and had visited food banks.

Patrick Griffin, organizing director for Unite Here, said its workers should be paid on par with other similarly situated workers in CPS who are represented by other unions.

In the latest CTU contract, the minimum earnings for teacher assistants and other support staff were raised to $40,000. All full-time SEIU 73 members, which include security staff and special education teacher aides, earn a baseline salary of $40,000, according to their latest contract.

“We think that people should be treated equally,” Griffin said. “The people who work in the lunchrooms, their wages are so far behind everybody else.”

But CPS has so far refused to agree to that minimum for lunchroom workers. The cash-strapped district is projecting at least a $520 million deficit for the upcoming school year and has tried to avoid taking on additional costs.

At the same time, CPS has steadily decreased the number of lunchroom workers it employs. CPS has 20% fewer lunchroom attendants, cooks and porters on staff compared to five years ago, according to a WBEZ analysis. That amounts to 324 fewer positions,187 of which were lost in the past year.

Griffin said a lot of school cafeterias only have one or two workers, which means that if one person is out, the other has to rush to cook, hand out food and clean up solo.

“It’s extremely stressful,” he said.

Union representatives have attended school board meetings in recent months to urge the district to sign a new contract, highlighting the financial stress lunchroom workers are under.

At a Board of Education meeting in February, Roushaunda Williams, who sits on the executive board for Unite Here, said she’d seen how her sister-in-law, a CPS lunchroom worker for more than 26 years, had struggled.

“Her heart is big, she loves the kids, but she’s seldomly validated,” Williams said.

In a survey conducted by the union last year, 88% of lunchroom workers who responded reported having recent trouble paying for necessities such as food, housing, electricity, child care or medical needs, Williams noted.

“They can’t afford food,” Williams said. “Every day the board fails to settle a fair contract is another day that CPS lunchroom workers struggle to feed their families.”

CPS officials have said they are focused on delivering higher wages for workers. District officials told school board members in February they had proposed increases so no worker earns less than $20 dollars an hour by this August. That’s more than the city’s current $16.60 minimum wage and would translate to $41,600 a year for full-time workers.

Lunchroom workers are hourly workers who do not get paid during the summer or on winter breaks or holidays. Unite Here officials say they’d need to be paid $24.63 an hour to approach $40,000 per year.

The union said CPS’ most recent proposal would bring pay up to $19 an hour for the 2026-27 school year. The starting wage for lunchroom attendants now is $16.78 an hour, and the union has said the vast majority of lunchroom workers make less than $18.42 an hour.

Griffin said CPS’ proposals “don’t get our members out of poverty” and the two sides are still “far apart” on wages.

In Penson’s cafeteria, there was an additional lunchroom attendant five years ago. But with that help gone, Penson said the work has become even more strenuous. Her right foot recently became inflamed from the many hours she spends standing on the concrete floor, and she now has to do physical therapy twice a week.

The doctor told Penson to get specific shoes. But she said they are expensive, and she wants to give any extra money she has to her grandchildren. Just this week, she said, she helped them pay for a field trip.

The rent in her Englewood apartment keeps increasing, but her salary isn’t keeping up. At times, she said she has so little food in her own kitchen that she goes to her mother’s or her sister’s to get a meal.

Her eyes light up at the prospect of getting paid $40,000 a year. It would be an almost 18% raise.

“That would be big,” she said. “I can do for my grandkids.”

Contributing: Elvia Malagón and Lauren FitzPatrick