Are Chicago Teachers Headed Toward a Strike?
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- Published on Wednesday, 07 September 2016 22:15
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1302 .... September 8, 2016
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Are Chicago Teachers Headed Toward a Strike?
Lee Sustar
A three-cornered battle between a budget-slashing mayor (Rahm Emanuel), a union-busting governor (Bruce Rauner) and determined teachers (CTU) could result this fall in the second public school strike in Chicago in four years.
At the center of the battle is an effort to force Chicago teachers to pay the equivalent of 7 per cent of their base pay in additional pension costs, reversing an agreement made with the Chicago Teachers Union in lieu of a raise. "If the Board of Education imposes a 7 per cent slash in our salaries, we will move to strike," Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) President Karen Lewis said at an August 8 press conference.
The school district also upped... the ante by announcing 1,000 layoffs and further budget cuts that will squeeze special education and force principals to eliminate jobs.
All indicators point to a teachers' strike in the fall. But the political landscape has changed since the CTU won a 2012 strike through rock-solid picket lines, mass protests and widespread popular support. This time around, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has seen his approval ratings plummet in the wake of police killings of African Americans, has dropped the confrontational rhetoric.
Instead, he's using the state budget impasse created by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner as a pretext to force teachers to accept a pay cut in the form of covering a higher share of their pension costs. Taxpayers will pay $250-million more to fund school pensions, Emanuel argues, so it's time for teachers to pay their share.
What the mayor omits is the fact that the pension crisis was created by the school district's failure to make pension contributions over the course of a decade. As CTU Staff Coordinator Jackson Potter wrote, "Not only are teachers and paraprofessionals taxpayers who will share in the burden of increased property taxes, but we have seen mass layoffs, program reductions, pay freezes, furlough days and a general lack of regard for the needs of our classrooms."
