CHICAGO – The Chicago Teachers Union is threating members who don’t want to walk out on their students April 1.

The CTU is planning a “Day of Action” for April Fool’s Day, and some teachers are complaining that union officials are threatening to kick them out of the union if they don’t participate, DNAinfo reports.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

“It was said to me as a matter of fact that the consequences of choosing to come to school is being kicked out of the union,” a South Side high school teacher who did not want to be identified told the news site. “I’m furious about the whole thing.”

Other educators also spoke up, though none were willing to give their name out of fear that CTU leadership will retaliate.

“’How do I get out of being part of this debacle? Is a question being asked in teacher lounges at schools across the city,” a grade school teacher said, adding she’s “morally and ethically” against a walkout.

Teachers who are kicked out of their union must continue to pay union fees but do not receive the same benefits as full members. If non-union teachers don’t cough up the cash, most union contracts allow union officials to require the district to terminate their employment.

A Chicago Tribune editorial points out that the union’s House of Delegates voted 486-124 to authorize the walkout for Friday, which could translate into roughly 4,400 of the district’s 22,000 teachers showing up for work and putting students’ interests ahead of their union’s desires.

The editorial commends folks like CPS teacher Ray Salazar, who discussed the strike recently on his blog The White Rhino.

“No effective teachers gives an assessment to students without explaining what success looks like,” Salazar wrote. “Yet we still cannot consistently – as rank-and-file members – communicate what policy or social or political changes will indicate success on April 1. … An effective educator knows the pulse of his or her classroom. Yet … the pulse of the rank-and-file membership seemed discounted.”

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

In other words union officials are allegedly calling the strike to send a message, but the actual message is unclear.

“The hastily planned, unfocused Day of Tantrum that union leaders demand evokes a famous line in the 1953 movie classic ‘The Wild One.’ Motorcycle gang leader Marlon Brando is asked what he’s rebelling against. ‘What have you got?’ he retorts,’” the Tribune editorial reads.

“For those 124 union reps to stand against CTU leaders took courage. We applaud those delegates. We also hope their refusal to bow to leadership’s student-cheating student will spread through Chicago classrooms. Most of all we hope they’ll be working April 1 at their schools, teacher Chicago students who need all the guidance they can get.”

But CTU officials have vowed to take action against members who don’t toe the union line. CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey even went as far as to allege teachers should put the union, and it’s never-ending demand for increased perks the city can’t afford, ahead of the students they’re hired to teach.

“I would submit that we have an obligation to side with the majority,” Sharkey said in a conference call to members, DNAinfo reports. “If you personally disagree, you have to stick with them … it’s something we all have to do together.”

CTU financial secretary Kristine Mayle also confirmed the union plans to revoke the memberships for teachers who don’t walk out on students Friday.

“We put out information in response to questions but we are not trying to threaten members. But if someone crosses the picket line they undermine the union. We have to do this together or it doesn’t work,” Mayle told the news site.

“We are following the constitution. If you cross the picket line you care considered a strikebreaker. Once that is reported to the office … we have a series of meetings and the committee determines whether to revoke your membership.”

The South Side high school teacher who spoke with DNAinfo said she’d rather surrender her union membership than to participate in the CTU’s political power games.

“It sends the wrong message to the kids,” she said. “We’re there to teach and set a good example. This sets a horrible example. I think we are being used as pawns to get legislation passed.”

And if the CTU revokes the teacher’s membership, she’s not planning on paying a fine – the amount of salary they receive during the strike – to get back in its good graces.

“The only thing I’ve gotten out of the union is a pocket calendar,” she said. “I’d rather than just be out of the union unless there’s some major turnaround where [union action] wasn’t such a battle of egos with a political agenda. … At the end of the day I think this [one-day strike] hurts kids. I’m very disappointed.”

The Chicago Tribune is hoping educators like the South Side high school teacher will convince their colleagues to come to the same conclusion.

The Tribune editorial also offered some advice for CTU President Karen Lewis:

Talk fast, Ms. Lewis. You haven’t made a compelling case to a significant chunk of your membership that this walkout is a smart move. You haven’t told the educators how this will help students.

Because everyone knows it won’t.

Those 124 dubious members also can do some talking. They can convince their colleagues that shutting classrooms out of pique at district CEO Forrest Claypool, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner and … “What have you got?” … is shameful. That teaching kids is their calling and should be their priority.

Eventually, educators will get a new contract. They’ll get raises and perks.

But children won’t get back the day teachers rejected them. What kids miss can’t be regained.

Call the grown-ups who come to work “scabs,” Ms. Lewis?

No. Call them Chicago teachers.