Just after the Chicago Teachers Union released a statement on its website declaring their intent to strike Monday morning, the union published a solidarity statement from feminist and honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America Gloria Steinem as the top item on their website.
In it, Steinem expressed her support of the union and described what their fight as one against, among other things, an “apartheid-like system of differential discipline systems”:
Tonight, I proudly wear a red t-shirt in support of the Chicago Teachers Union strike. They have been forced to strike – for the first time in 25 years – by the false economy of firing and penalizing the experienced teachers most needed by the students and by new teachers; by lengthening the school day as warehousing without educational services, healthy school buildings, and paid teachers; by what they have the knowledge to call the “apartheid-like system” of differential discipline policies; and by what seems to be a national tactic of demonizing teachers in order to turn public schools into corporate profit centers….
…This is why this country needs unions, collective bargaining, and mayors who recognize, honor and fairly pay the people our children know – and who know our children….
The Chicago Teachers Union declared its intent to go on strike Monday after Sunday’s negotiations failed to resolve the conflict between the third largest school district in the nation and the union. A press release put out late Sunday evening on the CTU website reiterated the union’s position:
Again, we are committed to staying at the table until a contract is place. However, in the morning no CTU member will be inside our schools. We will walk the picket lines….We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters throughout the state and country who are currently bargaining for their own fair contracts. We stand with those who have already declared they too are prepared to strike, in the best interests of their students….
The Chicago schools had been offering the CTU a 2 percent raise every year for four years. In response, the union had demanded a 30 percent raise over two years followed by a 25 percent raise over two years. One week ago, the union revised its demands to a 19 percent raise in the first year of the contract. The union was also negotiating the implementation of a longer school day and other issues, including rehiring teachers laid off and how to conduct new teacher evaluations.
In response, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said that “All that makes it a strike by choice, because they are not financial issues,” Emanuel said. “This is totally unnecessary, it’s avoidable, and our kids do not deserve this.”
The last time the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike was in 1987, when the standoff lasted 19 days. According to the Illinois Policy Institute, the average teacher in Chicago makes $71,000, while the average Chicagoan makes $30,203.
A union rally is planned for Monday at 3:30 p.m. in downtown Chicago. Follow tweets about the strike on twitter using the hashtag #CTUstrike.
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Comments
I think we should give them a $50,000 raise over the next 20 days, and a $500,000 raise over the next 40 days. Then a bazillion dollar raise over the next 90 days.
Payable in Monopoly money.
According to FamilyTaxpayers.org of Illinois, the head of the Chicago Teacher’s Union, Karen Lewis, was paid $89,859.00 for the 2011-2012 school term. This does not include any summer school classes she might have taught.
A number of teachers in the City of Chicago SD earn well over $100K/per school term, going as high as $135K/per term.
Although the cost of living is less in Chicago than it is in New York, teachers in Chicago earn approx. 20% more than New York teachers, making Chicago teachers the higest paid in the nation.
And what does the Chicago taxpayer get for all that pay? Chicago high schools had a 58% dropout rate in 2010.
Linked: ‘Chicago Teachers Union Will Strike for First Time in 25 Years’. The communists are going all out for workers’ solidarity on this, freakin’ bastards.
They only have as much power as we give them.
Next offer should be for $1 hour less than the current wage.
[…] Read it. Just after the Chicago Teachers Union released a statement on its website declaring their intent to strike Monday morning, the union published a solidarity statement from feminist and honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America Gloria Steinem as the top item on their website. […]
I wonder how the kids are performing in these schools populated by union goons averaging seventy-one large a year?
I don’t think I need to look it up. I am sure it is dismal.
If inner city schools were corporate entities, they would have gone bankrupt long ago.
The tragedy is that as the union goons strike, its the kids that continue to suffer in the cesspool created by the Democratic Party.
So, the Obama campaign couldn’t stave this off until after Nov. 6? Not even Val Jarrett? Ha ha!
The unions are putting Hussein to the test, and its damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I love it!
LOL….give it to them
Prof, how about the song for the day is Aretha?
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
All I want you to do for me
Is give it to me when you get home, Barry.
Sock it to me, sock it to me, …
Am I doing the math right?
For a teacher making 100k currently the city is offering $108.24k at the end of the 4 years, the union is countering with a demand for $162.5k.
Rescind the teacher’s contract. (Let them sue.) Then fire them for not showing up at work.
Interview and hire teachers willing to leave the union and who will work for merit pay. There are plenty, I’m sure.
…This all should have happened the past year but Rahm is in an Obama election year – so he has to play soft ball with union.
Doing the same things year after year and expecting a different result is one definition of stupid and also of a Illinois Democrat.
Yep, merit pay is the way to go. In Chicago and similar cities, it wouldn’t cost the taxpayers a dime. There will be no merit in the futility of babysitting feral savages and expecting anything but the feral savage behaviors of violence, extreme disrespect, sick cultural practices, child pregnancy, drugs, drugs, and more drugs, severe truancy, 60% drop-out rate, adminstrative policies that refuse discipline, and a curriculum that is laughable even if all those other problems weren’t present.
If Tiny Dancer had the “literal steel spine” (!) of his former boss, he could take a page from Reagan’s book and hire substitute teachers ala the air traffic controllers strike. Alas, he has fundraisers to organize and attend.
CPS graduation rate is right around 50%.
Chicago has about 120 charter schools and about 150 other primary and secondary schools. The impact of this strike will be less than the ones of 25 years ago precisely because the charter schools are not on strike — they aren’t unionized.
The CTU is one of the most socialist unions in the country today, well beyond the SEIU. The influence of the ‘Democratic Socialists of America’, the Ayers school, and the hard-left progressive movement is especially strong in the CTU, and that drives a fair bit of what’s happening today.
The other driving event is that the CTU is not afraid of Rahm Emanuel. They were very much afraid of Richie Daley, but Rahm apparently doesn’t impress them much. Further, I’m guessing the CTU understands that Champ is going to lose in November, so the time for getting what they want is now.
This is a good thing – for Republicans. The unions lost WI in a big way when they threw their hissy-fit against Scott Walker. The people answered – and the Socialists got theirs handed to them.
OT but related – that quote by Gloria Steinem has to be one of the most pathetic, poorly written pieces of socialist-propaganda-drivel I’ve read in a LONG time. How did she ever convince ANYONE that she was someone to be listened to…..? Why is anyone still listening?
Simply order all teachers back to work…if not fire them all…end of story…give them exactly 1 hour. It’s often said from all sides of the problem with public sector unions is that its the unions are the problem not the teachers, well this certainly goes against the politically correct view….every teacher good or bad who blindly followed the strike initiated by the union is just as guilty.
It’s time for the public sector to realise they work for us not the other way around.
Give they 24 hours to report to work and fire anyone who doesn’t show up and teach.
There are certainly plenty of eager young teachers in America who would be thrilled to have a job. They could hardly do worse than the existing teachers.
And outlaw public employee unions. Make continued membership in a public employee union after a date certain a firing offense.
Steinem concerned about “warehousing” children? When was the epiphany? She’s spent decades advocating as a feminist for schools to provide child care so that women can work.
Bogus issues/strike concocted as a campaign device.
Don’t you just love to see happy people! It warms the heart.
http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/ARC7tpuSMecRAOcdM9B3OA–/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD0zMjA7cT04NTt3PTUxMg–/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/theatlanticwire/26_000_Chicago_Teachers_Will_Strike-cbb0a3de2b8490294b223f8c70909c3f
Gee, I wonder why they wear red shirts.
I think it has an affinity to the red “hearts” used for Valentine’s Day. So, as teachers, it means “I ‘heart’ for my students.”
In this case, they’re going on strike. This really, really “hurts” them to do so, but, after all, “fair is fair.” Consequently, we’re to understand that the red shirts mean “I ‘hurt’ for you.”
The things that some teachers won’t do for their students. Amazing!
Oh. Being Chicago, I thought maybe it was so gunshot wounds wouldn’t be so noticeable.
Nah, it’s not because of gunshots. It’s their “bleeding hearts” for the poor, the disadvantaged, the unemployed, the under-employed, the alienated, the persons without a fixed national identity, the persons who have to drive a vehicle more than three years old, the president who’s so misunderstood by so many, the . . .
Put blow-up dolls in the teacher chairs. Kids won’t know the difference
By CTU’s own figures an average teacher earns a salary of $71,000 (CPS reports the number is $76,000 without benefits). Even if we only compare CPS teachers to others with college degrees, they still do well. According to the US Census American Community Survey Chicago the median annual wage for persons with a college degree is $48,866. CPS teachers earn nearly half again as much as an average worker in Chicago with a college degree.
http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2012/09/chicago-teachers-refuse-to-be-judged-on-performance-and-go-on-a-strike-of-choice-2478866.html
In one of the most indebted states, in harshest economic times, these already overpaid underperforming teachers are demanding a golden plan … and are saying NO to performance standards. Good Grief. Bring back the anti-trust laws, and stop unions from running our government.
“…This is why this country needs unions, collective bargaining, and mayors who recognize, honor and fairly pay the people our children know – and who know our children….”
When workers gang up to ceased production in a factory or services in an industry to demand more benefits, it’s call a strike.
When ‘teachers’ gang up and use children as leverage to demand more benefits, it’s really a hostage for ransom situation.
What we need are mayors who recognize that the ‘teachers’ who temporarily abandon their post are just as punishable as the people who leave their children in a locked car in August.
From a parent of 2 kids in the Chicago Public Schools:
1) this is a disgrace — we’ve all known that teachers’ unions have no interest in making things better for kids, but this shows it is about making things worse. The money offer is actually better than you mentioned (16% for 4 years: http://cps.edu/News/Announcements/Pages/09_09_2012_A1.aspx), so the strike is really about preventing the dead wood among the teachers from staying laid off (we know they can’t be fired, so layoffs are the only way any bad teachers ever get out of the system). The CTU’s key issues revolves around forcing principals to make hires out of the laid off pool.
2) kids will die (literally) if this strike continues for long. Given the out-of-control gang and crime problems on the South and West sides, out-of-school teenagers will almost certainly result in some shooting deaths without the daily refuge of a functioning school.
My kids will be fine – I live in a safe neighborhood and have the means to keep my kids safe and engages, but that can’t be said for most. Where are those voices for social justice now?
3) Most disturbing was seeing a march of teachers this morning. I saw one of my son’s elementary teachers — a fabulous teacher and someone who would benefit from a merit system — marching in with the mass of mediocrity. He should understand that we parents want a system that rewards and protects people like him; he shortchanges himself by throwing in with the others. More depressing still was the mindless support (honking horns, thumbs up from bicylists) that the marchers received. I’d guess most of the cheering squad did not have kids in the school system, but sadly, it is ingrained that “striking is cool,” “teachers are underpaid.” and fiscal sanity and professional accountability are to be ignored.
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Rush suspects it’s a set-up by the CTU so Obama can come to Chicago, meet with Dead Fish, solve the teacher contract problem, and enjoy the applause as he heads back to his headquarters at MSNBC.
The whole lot of them need to be fired. Their replacements, after having their qualifications checked, should be hired at lower salaries. The union should be desolved.