Chicago teachers strike to enter second week
(CBS/AP) CHICAGO - Chicago teachers uncomfortable with a tentative contract offer decided Sunday to remain on strike, insisting they need more time before deciding whether to end an acrimonious standoff with Mayor Rahm Emanuel that will keep 350,000 students out of class for at least two more days.
Emanuel fired back Sunday night by instructing city attorneys to seek a court order forcing Chicago Teachers Union members back into the classroom. "This was a strike of choice and is now a delay of choice that is wrong for our children," he said in a statement.
Presented with a choice on whether to ask members to vote on a contract that union president Karen Lewis had at one point called "a fight for the very soul of public education," the union's 800-member House of Delegates told their leaders they needed more time to talk to the rank and file before ending the city's first teachers strike in 25 years. Lewis also said after announcing the continuation of the strike that delegates "do not trust" the Chicago School Board, reports CBS News' Ryan Corsaro.
Teachers had only a few hours to review a summary of a proposed settlement worked out over the weekend with officials from the nation's third largest school district. That wasn't enough time, they said, to digest a complicated contract that addresses two issues central to the debate over the future of public education across the United States: teacher evaluations and job security.
The union will meet again Tuesday, after the end of the Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year.
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"We felt more comfortable being able to take back what's on the table and let our constituents look at it and digest it," said Dean Refakes, a physical education teacher at Gompers Elementary School. "We can have a much better decision come Tuesday."
That timeline, however, means the soonest classes could resume would be Wednesday. That frustrated both Emanuel and some parents, who learned late at night a week ago Sunday that a flurry of last-minute negotiations had failed to produce a contract agreement and that the strike was on.
"I think a week is a long time to be wasting time. Another week would be murder. I don't think it's right," said Beatriz Fierro, the mother of a fifth grader. "They should be back in school. I don't think teachers should be on strike that long."
Other parents continued to stand with the union. As teachers walked picket lines in the past week and rallied Saturday in a park near downtown, they were joined by parents who have had to scramble to find baby-sitters or a supervised place for children to pass the time.
"As much as we want our kids back in school, teachers need to make sure they have dotted all their I's and crossed their T's," said Becky Malone, mother of a second grader and fourth grader. "What's the point of going on strike if you don't get everything you need out of it? For parents, it'll be no more of a challenge than it's been in the past week."
Emanuel didn't appear at a brief news conference Sunday night with city school board president David Vitale, who said 147 schools staffed with non-union workers and central office employees would be open Monday for students who are dependent on school-provided meals.
But in a statement, Emanuel was typically blunt. He accused the union of using the city's students as "pawns in an internal dispute." He said the strike was illegal because it endangers the health and safety of students and concerned issues — evaluations, layoffs and recall rights — that state law says cannot be grounds for a work stoppage.
"While the union works through its remaining issues, there is no reason why the children of Chicago should not be back in the classroom as they had been for weeks while negotiators worked through these same issues," he said.
The walkout, the first for a major American city in at least six years, canceled classes for students who just returned from summer vacation and forced tens of thousands of parents to find alternatives for idle children, including many whose neighborhoods have been wracked by gang violence in recent months.
With an average salary of $76,000, Chicago teachers are among the highest-paid in the nation. The contract outline calls for annual raises, but it doesn't restore a 4 percent raise that was rescinded by the mayor last year.
That upset many teachers, said union delegate Susan Hickey, a school social worker. But she said the proposal was ultimately one teachers — who are worried that staying out beyond mid-week will further upset parents — could support.
"Personally I think there's a lot of us who don't want to lose the parental support," she said.
Lewis said delegates weren't yet willing to go back to work while contract language was amended because of the level of distrust between the union and the city, and the fact the settlement on the table remains tentative.
"The trust level is just not there," Lewis said. "You have a population of people who are frightened of never being able to work for no fault of their own. They just don't have the trust."
Emanuel, who did not personally negotiate the deal but monitored the talks through aides, has pushed hard for a contract that includes ratcheting up the percentage of evaluations based on student performance, to 35 percent within four years. The union contends that is unfair because it does not take into account outside factors that affect student performance such as poverty, violence and homelessness.
The union also pushed for a policy to give laid-off teachers first dibs on open jobs anywhere in the district, which the city said that would keep principals from hiring the teachers they thought best qualified for the position.
"They're still not happy with the evaluation(s)," Lewis said. "They're not happy with the recall. They don't like the idea that people's recall benefits are cut in half."
The teachers walked out Sept. 10 after months of tense contract talks that for a time appeared to be headed toward a peaceful resolution.
Emanuel and the union agreed in July on a deal to implement a longer school day with a plan to hire back 477 teachers who had been laid off rather than pay regular teachers more to work longer hours. That raised hopes the contract would be settled before the start of fall classes, but bargaining stalled on other issues.
To win friends, the union representing 25,500 teachers, engaged in something of a publicity campaign, telling parents repeatedly about problems with schools and the barriers that have made it more difficult to serve their kids. They described classrooms that are stifling hot without air conditioning, important books that are unavailable and supplies as basic as toilet paper that are sometimes in short supply.
The strike upended a district in which the vast majority of students are poor and minority. It also raised the concerns of parents who worried not just about their kids' education but their safety. Chicago's gang violence has spiked this year, with scores of shootings reported throughout the summer and bystanders sometimes caught in the crossfire.
"I don't like being on strike. Nobody in my school likes being on strike, but we understand the reason. It's not an easy process," said Michael Bochner, a teacher at Cesar Chavez Elementary.
"My membership," he said, "really wants to go back to work."
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And what of these teachers wanting NO ACCOUNTABILITY for the performance. Isn't teaching a job. Isn't their performance measurable and quantifiable just like everyone else's, and why shouldn't they lose their jobs if the DO NOT PERFORM. I would lose mine if I was consistently not performing.
Yet they want to pass the buck and blame the home life and parents and inner city and all sorts of other crap. Well, if thats the case, then certainly school vouchers so that these folks can send their kids to the schools of their choosing would be massively beneficial. That way students will flock where EXCUSES ARE NOT MADE and where performance is measured, rewarded, and a lack of it not tolerated.
While we on the topic, why do we need government in our schools anyway. Isn't the education of my child and how I educate him or her and where I educate them, isn't that my choice. Why can't local communities and home schoolers form organizations and schools that are way better than the mess we have now and why can't those schools take kids from anywhere that want to come and why cant they receive the money from the voucher system (OUR TAXES). Oh I know....? Its because of INTRUSIVE HUGE GOVERNMENT involved in every aspect of our lives. Its because of public sector UNIONS holding taxpayers hostage. Its because people want jobs, benefits, pensions, etc... but want NO ACCOUNTABILITY because they believe it is their right as UNION members.
This nation is headed right down the toilet.
Now I dont know about you, but I am an average american in a middle class suburban neighborhood in a home that is listed for sale for $200k in a Chicago suburb. I PAY OVER $9000 in PROPERTY TAX. Thats INSANE! Why are people not revolting at this? Half of this goes to the schools and yet the schools make me purchase additional supplies totaling nearly $100.
THIS IS NUTS!
LOL!
Mayor Emanuel is one of the top 10 National Socialist in power today and he's going to break the strike!
The Irony.
Government collective bargaining means voters do not have the final say on public policy. Instead their elected representatives must negotiate spending and policy decisions with unions. That is not exactly democratic - a fact that unions recognize.
This whole thing disgusts me.
You make enough money now and you have the same job security the rest of us have, now try doing something novel- stop crying and go to work for five and a half hours a day for 3/4 of a year.
Observe what continue to go on in Chicago.
A Liberal Democratic Administration is in a dispute with a pro-Liberal Democratic Teachers Union.
800 Teacher Representatives today rejected a contract proposal because the Liberal Democratic Administration is planning on paying for the new contract by closing excess capacity.
This is the LIBERAL MINDSET ON FULL PUBLIC DISPLAY.
Illinois, in reality, is bankrupt. Chicago, in reality, is bankrupt.
THERE IS NO MONEY. Yet, the Democratic Administration and pro-Democratic Teachers Union are arguing how to spend MORE money.
Confronted by reality, the Democratic Administration wants to eliminate excess capacity. There are 430,000 students in a system capable of housing 600,000. (Approx 24 new schools have opened in recent years. How and why they were constructed is a "wonder" in and of itself. Chicago Democratic Corruption anybody? But this is not the current issue.) Nevertheless, the pro-Democratic Teachers Union are demanding that FANTASYLAND be maintained in its current state.
In short, each teacher wants MORE money but he/she does not want to permit the Administration to seek a source of money to pay for it (justifiably fearing layoffs). The Liberal teachers want unnecessary capacity to continue to be supported. What exactly are these teachers "teaching" in Chicago? Certainly not "common sense."
WHAT YOU ARE OBSERVING IN CHICAGO IS THE 'LIBERAL MINDSET' ON FULL ILLOGICAL DISPLAY. And Republicans have absolutely nothing to do with it.
KEEP THIS IN MIND WHEN YOU MAKE YOUR CHOICE ON NOVEMBER 6th.
We're a long way from those times, get real.