Victory for Lashanda: CPS Worker Reclaims Over $10K in Retro Pay After Employer’s Oversight!

When Lashanda Williams, a Case Coordinator at the Student Safety Center for CPS attended a union contract ratification meeting she ran into issues that ultimately led to her realization that CPS was not paying her the correct amount.

When going through the tentative agreement with union staff and working out the amount she would be getting paid with the new contract, staff found a discrepancy in her pay with the years of seniority she had.

“I would have never known that I wasn’t being paid the correct amount if our union had not caught the error!” said Lashanda.

I never really looked into much about our contract fights, I voted but was never very involved. Through this experience I learned that we MUST verify our pay rate. We often trust the system to be paying us the correct amount but we need to look for ourselves.

Our union is very important when it comes to making sure everything is accurate. We pay our union dues and we need to utilize the tools we have. We need to not only vote but be involved. I want to commend the union for assisting me, to get my retro pay and pay scale corrected!

Lashanda Williams

“I am glad I met Lashanda when she came to the ratification vote, and we were able to assist her in correcting her step and receiving retro pay for all money owed. We continue to work through step corrections for around 1,600 members. So far this year, the Union has won back nearly $1.6 Million in back wages for step corrections. It is critically important that members get involved in their union and check their checks!” – Stacia Scott, Executive VP SEIU 73