In 2014, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) was planning its next moves. After electing a reform leadership in 2010, the union carried out a historic strike against Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2012 and, by all accounts, defeated him. Since then, the union has repeatedly walked off the job over demands that they say include but go beyond members’ bread-and-butter issues of pay and benefits to include demands that benefit the entire Chicago working class. But the CTU was also figuring out how to pivot to impact the electoral arena through an “independent political organization” (IPO).

IPOs are common in Chicago as neighborhood- and ward-level political groups that organize around local issues but can also make endorsements in mayoral and other elections. But the CTU had in mind an IPO that could be a force in politics from the ward level up to federal elections. Such an organization would soon materialize as United Working Families (UWF), a political coalition that includes the CTU and other progressive unions and community organizations in the Chicago area. The group aims to advance a working-class, anti-austerity political agenda.

UWF has now gone through three election cycles and has elected candidates at all levels of government. In this week’s election, thirteen of their city council candidates either won outright or advanced to the April 4 runoff. (Chicago has fifty total city council members, or “aldermen.”) Their endorsees hold three seats on the Cook County Board and eight in the Illinois state legislature. And last year, UWF candidate Delia Ramirez won election to the House of Representatives.