The Chicago Teachers Union has shown that it is not afraid to strike. In 2012, its decision to strike was approved by a near unanimous vote. Now, teachers are bracing for more budget cuts, even as the Rahm Emanuel-picked Board of Education shifts resources and students to nonunion charter schools.
It it is a strange world we live in when a mayor of a major city calls himself a Democrat as he doubles down on his war against public schools and unions.
What do you call Mayor Emanuel? A Republicrat?
Here is the latest from the Chicago Teachers Union:
NEWS RELEASE
IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Stephanie Gadlin
November 2, 2015 312-329-6250
Chicago Teachers Union prepares the rank-and-file for possible labor strike as threats of mass layoffs continue
CHICAGO – Today, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s handpicked public schools chief announced a change in his proposed timeline to lay off 5,000 or more educators who are demanding a fair labor contract. CEO Forest Claypool claims teachers could start losing their jobs as early as January, shortly after the end of the holiday season. This is why the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is encouraging members to start saving a portion of their paychecks in order to weather a possible labor strike.
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) continues with its plan to remove protections for experienced and qualified educators who lose their positions through no fault of their own. Massive layoffs only exacerbate the current 50 percent teacher turnover rate every five years — something that interferes with continuity and quality instruction.
“We are asking teachers, paraprofessionals and clinicians in our bargaining unit to save at least 25 percent of their pay in preparation for a possible strike,” said CTU President Karen Lewis. “With the uncertainty in Springfield, the continued chaos at the Board of Education, and the constant threats to our classrooms, we have to be prepared. Our families will depend on us being able to weather what could be a protracted strike.”
Lewis also said more than 200 schools have taken unofficial, independent straw polls testing the members’ strike-ready temperatures but the union will run its own mock strike vote this week. “Teachers are feeling the strain placed on them by principals who have to work with reduced budgets and cuts to special education and other necessary programs. Class sizes are ballooning and the district is crying broke when it comes to our demands for more teaching resources while at the same time cheering themselves on while opening multi-million dollar charter operations. This makes no sense. We have to take a stand for our profession and for our students and their families.”
On Thursday, November 5th, the CTU will run an official ‘practice’ strike vote and contract poll in all CPS school buildings. The exercise helps prepare members should they decide to take an official strike vote in the coming days. State law requires 75 percent affirmative vote from CTU’s entire membership. However, a strike authorization vote is an internal union affair of which the Board has absolutely no legal right to interfere in any way.
In three weeks, thousands of CTU members are expected to present a unified front on November 23rd when they rally in Grant Park at Butler Field, 100 S. Lake Shore Drive. In addition to hearing speeches from Union leaders, people will listen to testimonies from parents, community leaders, students and other labor leaders. The 5:30 p.m. event will include a tailgate, with free food and beverages, and include a special commemoration for CPS students who have been killed or impacted by gun violence.
Labor talks between the CTU and the Board remains in mediation and negotiations are ongoing. Should CTU members decide to strike it will the second teachers strike in the last three years, both of which will have occurred during the Emanuel administration.
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The Chicago Teachers Union represents nearly 27,000 teachers and educational support personnel working in the Chicago Public Schools, and by extension, the more than 400,000 students and families they serve. The CTU is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Federation of Teachers and is the third largest teachers local in the United States and the largest local union in Illinois. For more information please visit CTU’s website at http://www.ctunet.com.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
What does it mean to be a Democrat when the Democrat-in-Chief is a neoliberal war-mongering rephormer?
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Nothing, Dienne. It means nothing to be a Democrat. They have no coherent economic theory or any bedrock values they won’t throw overboard.
They’re in the business of technocratic tweaks to conservative theory and ideology to make conservative ideology and ideas slightly more palatable. Then they run on “but those other guys are worse!”
It’s funny because I think the Democratic Party needed labor a lot more than labor needed the Democratic Party. Labor was their one and only real connection to economic issues that matter to working and middle class people. Without that they’re just socially liberal Republicans.
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Someone willing to do to children, especially poor childre, what he is doing makes him a monster in my eyes. He is someone who loves money above all else; he is re-enabling the segregation of schools. Definitely not my definition of a true Democrat – much more in the vein of a bigoted conservative.
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And the UFT here in NY are nothing but collaborators. In September our union paper was praising the insignificant gains made on those invalid common core tests. Not a word is written how the tests are destroying the careers of veteran teachers. Each day veteran teachers of 20 years tell me they doubt they will make it to 25 or 30 years to retire. Most city principals today are little more than kids themselves and except for a small minority, they make the lives of the vets miserable. A friend of mine who teaches in Manhattan was assigned an “informal” mentor, really a spy for the principal. This mentor came through the Teacher Fellows program and this is her second year while my friend has co-authored two books and was a coach in math until his new principal took over last year. All the union says is that a principal deserves to have her own team and that my friend needs to be more of a team player. Karen Lewis and the CTU have balls while the UFT are made up of eunuchs.
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Rahm is the quintessential DINO (Democrat in name only). He worships the monied class and does their bidding. He has no discernable convictions, only that which he thinks is to his benefit interests him, not unlike New York’s DINO-in-Chief, Cuomo. After Rahm was forced into the recent run-off, he seemed a little humbled. But that wore off and it’s scandalous business as usual. (He had to know about Barbara Byrd Bennett’s background — or worse, didn’t bother to find out.) But he knows how to buy people off (votes). I hear he’s thinking of a third term.
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Meanwhile today’s Trib reports how state higher education institutions are feeling Rauner’s holding the budget hostage. The smaller schools are talking of having to close in the spring. There is also talk that scholarship money for low income students will not be available. I love how we are told we have to tighten our belts; I have yet to see how the fat cats tend to tighten theirs. Do you suppose Rauner will sell one of his nine houses?
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“What do you call Mayor Emanuel? A Republicrat?”
I don’t know what you call him, but my son and his wife live in Chicago, neither one is from there originally, neither one is particularly “political” and they both think he’s a terrible mayor. They don’t object to his GOP-friendly ideology. They object because they think he does a bad job. Republican, Democrat, whatever. They think he’s incompetent and he should have stayed in Congress where he was one of 400-something so couldn’t do as much damage.
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I hate to say, but I think the biggest reason Democrats have abandoned labor unions and “middle class economics” is this:
“It is an industry known as an overwhelmingly white, male bastion — one that has been slow to hire African-Americans, Hispanics and women. It is also an industry that has pushed policies in Washington that some major labor leaders have warned will stifle job growth. And it is an industry that has been accused of labor practices that undercut workers.
Yet despite all this, the Democratic Party establishment in Washington, starting with President Obama’s administration, has established an unusually close relationship with the sector’s rich and powerful companies — one that has benefited the two sides immensely, both in financial and political terms.”
They’re getting big, big bucks from both the finance and tech industries now, and neither of those industries are particularly sympathetic to the “plight of the middle class”. I think the contempt Democrats seem to have for “traditional” jobs and ordinary workplace issues like wages and hours and such stem from what they hear from their donors.
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As long as we’re discussing Chicago, can anyone give me an update on the hunger strikers from the Dyett High School community? I know the strike ended, but I was wondering what’s happening at that school now?
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They won a neighborhood school (definitely the big win-won’t be charter/privately-run!) but CPS did not take the community plan for a green technology school. Instead, it will be an arts-focused school. The hunger strikers were not happy, but CPS made it clear they didn’t care if people lived or died. Disgusting.
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Can’t a school be a green technology school AND have an arts focus? Why does one area have to be emphasized over the other, instead of giving the kids the best of everything?
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That’s what I said. If the big boys felt the need to feel like they were in charge, would it really have cost them so much to recognize the work this group put into a well thought out and planned program as well?
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Exactly. It would have cost CPS nothing to recognize the plan these amazing parents and community members created. Shows the utter and constant disrespect of CPS.
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He isn’t a democrat, nor is Obama, nor are many of them who have infiltrated the democratic party. Dfer is LOADED with dines. They are republicans working from the inside. Wolves in sheep clothing. Just as they buy their way onto board, and appoint Broadies and Toadies, they are working from the inside to destroy democracy.
Didn’t Michelle Rhee tout she was a democrat, and her organization(s) were democratic, whilst taking monies from a the majority of billionaire republicans? Of course she did. My boss is a staunch republican millionaire old white man who daily gets emails from democratic organizations. My boss stays apprised of what the democrats are doing. Openly, he is for Kasich. Secretly, he is for Christie. Its a riot. Its also very scary.
There aren’t many democrats left. Think about it.
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But, Therlo, they ARE all democrats.
They are about as democratic as Lillian Gish was a man.
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Run from the Left; govern from the Right. It’s the mantra of the Third Way “think” tank, among others. I don’t think anyone who follows this blog would be the least bit surprised to find out the names of politicians, past and present, with whom the Third Way is associated. No, just saddened.
HuffPost Feb 21, 2014: “It’s a shame that it’s taken so long to even be a discussion,” [Noam] Chomsky said. “As for support, we may recall the last major program for helping families at the level of survival was under Richard Nixon. In many respects Nixon was the last liberal president.”
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Randi from the AFT and Lily from the NEA are far too spineless and corrupt to call for a nation-wide strike.
Yet they both make well over $400,000 per year.
No wonder they both play everything squeaky clean and safe.
Karen Lewis is, in contrast, a real leader and heroine.
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Demos are Democratic only on social issues (the ones there isn’t much money in). When it comes to industries with beau coup gov’t kickback $$$ they are as conservative as repubs (slanted meaning for conservative yup)
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Not really even on social issues. Both Obama and Hillary have “evolved” (slowly and very reluctantly) on marriage equality – neither have been leaders on the issue. They both speak forcefully for women’s rights, but Obama’s done practically nothing, Hillary has done only slightly more. Listening to Obama talk to black people it’s almost hard to hear the difference between him and any right-winger with their bootstraps message.
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Other than self-promotion, what has Hillary done for women’s rights?
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The team that Rahm Emanuel plays on was never more evident than when he was Obama’s White House Chief of Staff and famously said “Liberals are fucking retarded.”
Emmanuel is definitely a Republicrat, and so are Barack, Arne, Hillary and Bill. Ultimately, it’s Bill who is most responsible for getting this ball rolling, by turning the party hard right, labeling them “New Democrats” and betraying their working class, low income and minority base, in order to garner the Southern vote and gain favor with their corporate cronies. So don’t be fooled by false promises or expect anything different from other Republicrats including Hillary.
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EXACTLY what I’ve been saying about Hillary all along, Teacher Ed.
Endorsements coming from Randi & Lily are NOT endorsements from the rank-&-file, & it is WE are the unions
(Haven’t we learned a lesson from re-electing Obama, who has virtually DESTROYED public education in the U.S.?) BTW–
HRC is right now having some BIG $$$-backed fundraisers in the Chicago area. We prefer the term DINOs (Democrats in Name Only), & that’s what she–& all of the people you mentioned above, Teacher Ed–are. We would get EXACTLY the same choice we had in 2008 & 2012–do we REALLY need to choose from “the lesser of 2 evils” model yet again? (& again & again–&, to quote Ken Previti, “The lesser of 2 evils is still…evil.”).
Like Swacker, RE: Wilson & “standardized” testing, I say NO! We have a clear choice this year–3rd party candidates not now nor will ever win, & that’s why Bernie Sanders is running as a Democrat…& he’s the real deal. PLEASE don’t moan & groan & write him off, saying, “He can’t win.” STOP your whining & start the winning–get your #@^*s out there & start having ballot petitions signed, pass fliers out, go to Iowa this weekend, send contributions & join up with the many, many, many Sanders campaigns in a village/town/city near you.
Bernie 2016–because yes, WE can (& WE WILL).
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Agree with you 150%!
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There will be a teachers strike in Chicago because the mayor and his reformer cronies from across the nation want one, and this time Rahm will not be burdened with an incompetent phony like Brizzard or a conciliatory former educator turned corrupt official like BBB during the ersatz negotiations he and CPS will feign interest in as they make the case for their supposed bargaining points. The strike will also be much longer than the last one, again because Rahm wants it to be so. Why? Because he plans to use the prolonged strike to drive more parents to charters (which will remain open) so he can both fill the staggering number of vacancies (almost 13,000) in the existing ones and thinly justify the opening of new locations. The parents in the poor communities (where schools have already been closed) that will be targeted by this are those most averse to the idea of having to miss work since they are the least able to endure the cessation of income. The strike will also be far more vicious due to the fact that the last time, Rahm and his appointed board got taken out behind the toolshed. He has not gotten over that. This time, his reformy allies are already prepared to back him up by dropping big bucks on propaganda campaigns against the CTU, teachers in general, and their defense of students and taxpayers against all of the toxic reformy policies Rahm has facilitated in Chicago. Their intent is to make an example of the CTU as part of their overall assault on teachers unions and unions in general. I’m sure this was one of the back room topics discussed at the recent reformy love fest sponsored by the Walton’s and Broad foundation at Camp Philo. The CTU and education activists in the city better get ready and make plans on how to counter all this. Not that they don’t know that they will be under attack, just that they will not believe how evil and disgusting it will be till after it is well underway.
I’m sure that governor Ruiner is hoping for a strike for the same reasons, and views a strike as a extra freebee since he is holding education funding hostage along with the rest of the basic services that are on hold due to his tantrum over not getting his way on his personal “but I’m king of Illinois!?” agenda,
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