Excerpt: "Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago, has turned to the city's courts to end a teacher's strike that has entered its second week."

Lawyers for Chicago Public Schools filed a complaint in circuit court against the Chicago Teachers Union. (photo: Unknown)

Emanuel In Legal Bid to End Chicago Teacher's Strike

By Al Jazeera English

17 September 12

Rahm Emanuel begins court action to obtain injunction in attempt to end first teacher's strike in 25 years.

ahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago, has turned to the city's courts to end a teacher's strike that has entered its second week.

Lawyers for Chicago Public Schools, representing the local administration, filed a complaint in circuit court against the Chicago Teachers Union seeking a preliminary injunction "to end the strike immediately".

Two reasons, specifically, were given by CPS for the request: danger to "public health and safety" of the

students and alleged violation of Illinois state law that prohibits strikes except for wages and benefits.

"State law expressly prohibits the CTU from striking over non-economic issues, such as layoff and recall policies, teacher

evaluations, class sizes and the length of the school day and year. The CTU's repeated statements and recent advertising campaign have made clear that these are exactly the subjects over which the CTU is striking," the school district said in a statement.

The Cook County court has not yet held a hearing on the request to end strikes in the nation's third-largest school district.

Judge Peter Flynn has said if the strike continues until then, the court may instead hold a hearing on the injunction on Wednesday.

The first such strike in 25 years has cancelled classes for 350,000 kindergarten, elementary and high school students in the midwestern city.

Education Reforms

Teachers began protesting last week against sweeping education reforms sought by Emanuel, especially evaluating teachers based on the standardised test scores of their students.

They also fear a wave of neighbourhood school closings that could result in mass teacher layoffs. They want a guarantee that laid-off teachers will be recalled for other jobs in the district.

The showdown left in doubt a deal on wages, benefits and education reforms for 29,000 unionised teachers that negotiators had hoped would end the biggest labour dispute in the US in a year.

Union delegates will reconvene on Tuesday to discuss the feedback from members, Karen Lewis, union president, said, adding that parents should plan for their children to be out of school until at least Wednesday.

Before the meeting of delegates on Sunday, Lewis had called the agreement a "good contract". But after the decision to extend the strike she backtracked, saying: "This is not a good deal. This is the deal we got."

David Vitale, Emanuel's chief negotiator and school board president, said the union should allow children to go back to school while the two sides complete the process.

"We are extremely disappointed that after 10 months of discussion reaching an honest and fair compromise that they decided to continue their strike of choice and keep our children out of the classroom," Vitale said.

An Emanuel Overreach?

During the first week of the strike, opinion polls showed parents and Chicago voters backing the union, with some parents and students joining boisterous rallies. A key question is who the public will support now that the strike is dragging on.

Former Chicago city council member Dick Simpson said Emanuel may have made a mistake by going to court to block the strike.

"If I were advising the mayor, I would have advised him to be patient for a couple of days," said Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

By waiting, Emanuel could have put the onus on the teachers if they rejected the contract later this week, Simpson said.

Both sides appeared to win some concessions, according to details of the tentative agreement released by the parties.

Emanuel compromised on the design of the first update of the evaluation system for Chicago teachers in 40 years. He agreed to phase in the new plan over several years and reduced the weighting of standardised test results in reviewing teachers.

Teachers won some job-security protections and prevented the introduction of merit pay in their contract.

The agreement calls for a 3 per cent pay raise for teachers this year and 2 per cent in each of the next two years. If the

agreement is extended for an optional fourth year, teachers get a 3 per cent increase.

Chicago union teachers make an average of about $76,000 annually. The deal could worsen the Chicago Public Schools financial crisis. Emanuel said the contract will cost $295m over four years, or $74m per year.

Comments

We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.

General guidelines: Avoid personal attacks on other forum members; Avoid remarks that are ethnically derogatory; Do not advocate violence, or any illegal activity.

Remember that making the world better begins with responsible action.

- The RSN Team

+7 # Activista 2012-09-17 12:20

..contract will cost $295m over four years, or $74m per year? Congress approved ADDITIONAL (to $3 billion plus) $70 million for superbombs to Israel ...
How Emanuel differs from Walker a “hero," brother from Wisconsin?

+2 # dkonstruction 2012-09-17 12:49

This is precisely why the teachers should have gone on "strike" by continuing to teach but refusing to take attendance (since this is one how most of the city's schools gets paid by the state). The purpose of a strike is to hurt the employer economically. In the old days or with industrial workers this meant shutting down production. In the new age and where we are now talking much more about public employee "service" workers the goal should be to continue to provide services but make them free i.e., prevent the employer from getting paid for the work done by its employees. The Milan bus drivers did this in 1973 and the city caved in to their demands in 24 hours.

0 # RICHARDKANEpa 2012-09-18 02:31

Quoting dkonstruction:

This is precisely why the teachers should have gone on "strike" by continuing to teach but refusing to take attendance (since this is one how most of the city's schools gets paid by the state). The purpose of a strike is to hurt the employer economically. In the old days or with industrial workers this meant shutting down production. In the new age and where we are now talking much more about public employee "service" workers the goal should be to continue to provide services but make them free i.e., prevent the employer from getting paid for the work done by its employees. The Milan bus drivers did this in 1973 and the city caved in to their demands in 24 hours.

Thanks for your bold insight but it may need fine tuning. Kids skipping class and getting in trouble could be blamed on the job action. Perhaps no tests or no grades, there needs to be carefully thought. 1973 was before the internet, and there are a lot of Milans on the map. So I didn't succeed in goggling what you referred to.

+1 # dkonstruction 2012-09-18 06:07

Richard, thanks for the comment...I agree this needs to be thought out to deal with issues such as the truancy ones you mentioned. for me the main issue is for particularly public sector service workers to figure out how to "strike" while at the same time getting the support of the majority of people who are not union workers and thus already have lower salaries and fewer benefits. The right has been very effective at "divide and conquer" and i don't think the unions have been particularly effective at reaching out to non-union workers who should be supporting them. One way is through how they conduct their strikes (i.e., continuing to provide the services but delivering them for free) and the other is by taking back control of their pension funds and investing in things like developing affordable housing that would benefit not only its own members but also non-union workers as well.

The bus driver strike i was referring to was in Milan, Italy. My recollection was that it was 1973 but it may have been later on in the 70s during the height of the Italian autonomist/work erist movement.

+7 # Eliza D 2012-09-18 06:46

dkonstrucion-Te achers cannot go to work and refuse to take attendance. That is called insubordination and they can legitimately be terminated. Many people do not realize how much teachers hands are tied in terms of what they can and cannot do. They cannot, like, military personnel, refuse ANY direct order, no matter how ridiculous, or they are insubordinate. The public also does not realize that teachers today are given a curriculum by their state, which tells them what to teach, and their supervisors tell them HOW to teach it.That is why teacher evaluations are so absurd. Teachers are judged by a superior who is interested only in student scores improving, and whether the teacher is following the company line, not in the connection between the teacher and students. This is a cold equation, bound to cause rebellion in children who know when they are being treated as test scores and non-entitities. It is an ugly system, and that is what must change. As adults, we must respond to what children need, not what we need from them.

0 # dkonstruction 2012-09-18 07:36

The teachers went on strike (by their own admission) primarily not for wages/benefits but over how they are being evaluated (as well as other conditions)...t his is why the mayor is going to court saying that it is an illegal strike. I fully support the teachers and their right to strike but my point is that public employee service workers need a new model and tactics for how to do this. I am also fully opposed to the whole system of standardized testing as well as evaluating teachers based on their results. There could be lots of ways for the teachers to continue to teach but not take attendance (they could take attendance but refuse to turn in the attendance sheets until after the strike is over or any one of a number of other ways). the point is for the unions to start to be creative in their tactics instead of relying on tactics that are now nearly 100 years old not to mention that many of the larger unions have acted for decades more like the partner of management than the true representative of their membership (often selling out future workers to protect those on the job today). Those involved in the early days of the struggles for the right to organize put their bodies and sometimes their lives on the line so to say now well we can't do anything that might be risky for us is a sad statement on the current state of the US labor movement as a whole.

+4 # Eliza D 2012-09-18 11:07

dkonstruction-P lease give teachers another option. Failing to turn in attendance sheets is considered insubordination . One of my friends, who had to deal with one of the many egotistical, angry maniacs who seem to populate administrations in schools,forgot to sign his attendance sheet. The principal called him to the office,screamed at him red-faced,jumpe d up and down,punched the wall, and threatened to fire him. This same principal once told the teachers in a faculty meeting that if they failed more than 40% of students (by the way the failures were for non-attendance) they could "get the hell out of HIS school". We would like to think that we are courageous enough to stand up to this intimidation, but most people I know have mortgage payments and children and cannot afford to lose their jobs. In this age-crazed society, it is not easy (or often possible) for someone over 40 to get another job.

0 # dkonstruction 2012-09-18 11:59

Eliza D, I give teachers (and all workers) much more credit for being able to come up with creative tactics (unfortunately, i do not have the same faith in the leadership of the large unions). Do you really believe that if all 26,000 striking teachers did this that the mayor would fire every single teacher in the city? Not to mention that there are many ways in which this could be done so that individuals are protected (things can be handed in and then "lost" or misentered into computer systems or systems hacked and data deleted...etc., etc.,...In any event, the general question i was posing was how can public employee "service" workers "strike" in such a way as to continue to provide the services (basically to the rest of the working class) but make those services free such that the city cannot collect the income it normally derives from them. Basically, your response is saying that there is nothing that workers can do that might risk their jobs. If this is true then the labor movement in this country is indeed finished and there will be no way for union workers to ever win the broad based public support that they need. I for one have alot more faith in both the creativity as well as the powers of workers when they are unified and act collectively.

It is sad indeed how few are even willing to have such discussions and simply say in effect that nothing else or nothing different can be done.

I for one, respectfully disagree.

+4 # Eliza D 2012-09-19 16:47

dkonstruction-I am NOT saying there is nothing that can be done. But the tactics of big business corporations has always been to divide and conquer. Employees working individually get little to no support from their colleagues-witn ess Lily Ledbetter and thousands like her. That is why a strong union must organize a strike or work stoppage that EVERYONE must participate in. It must be all or none. You are right about unions. I've had intimate dealings with two large ones in my life-in one I was shop steward-and the corruption of the unions left me gagging. There are precious few Karen Lewis's out there-that is why I'm hopeful again.Unfortuna tely, I think more people need to hurt more before workers will again unite. We are so divided today between the haves and have- nots.

+2 # Activista 2012-09-17 19:25

"Circuit Judge Juan Colas struck down the law, which essentially eliminated collective bargaining rights for most public employees, as a violation of both the state and U.S. constitutions ...(Wisconsin/a gainst Walker)"
What about Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago (Emanuel), has turned to the city's courts to end a teacher's strike ... seems that a thug is a violating both the state and U.S. constitutions.
Hope that the hypocrites see the same pattern between the democrats and republicans. It is the rich ....

+7 # RMDC 2012-09-18 02:34

Emanuel is really a disgusting human. He's always been a gangster disguised as a politician. I never understood how he got elected. Didn't people of Chicago know what an asshole he is?

There's no doubt that public school systems in big cities like Chicago are broken, corrupt, inefficient, and not very good at educating all kids. They need major overhaul. but Emanuel is not the guy to do it. He's worse. The status quo is better than he is.

+5 # Eliza D 2012-09-18 07:08

I know many teachers and it infuriates me when people say the public school system is broken, without knowing what that means. (Maybe you do) Firstly, schools, unlike businesses, must work with the raw material they receive. Businesses can choose which material they will use to build a house,airplane, etc. They can rightfully be judged on the result of that product, because the business controlled the use of the materials used. Schools do not. They must take what they are given, such as autistic,non-En glish speakers,disabl ed children, and try to produce a college-ready result (college ready is part of the new lingo for classifying and labeling children). This is just not possible in every case, or even most cases. Furthermore, there are many children who just don't have the support structure at home to "make the grade". They live in a homeless shelter or their father is in jail or they live with a single parent who is working two jobs to support them and just cannot oversee homework.
Secondly, where is written that every child should go to college? The numbers show that 60% of college graduates since 2008 have been unable to secure careers commensurate with their education level, and of that many don't have jobs at all. So why should all students go to college?
Schools have become unwieldy, cold institutions top-heavy with overpaid administrators and too light with teachers. I would advise any young person thinking of teaching today to run for his or life.

+1 # in deo veritas 2012-09-18 07:49

The poor folks in Chi have had a long haul with corrupt mayors since the 1930's. except for the lady mayor they had.This guy was not to be mayor of a major city much less a presidential adviser. There is no way to isolate the educational system from the urban problems it is enveloped by that make the lives of those envolved in education so difficult. After 36 years in education I gound that the problem is not with the teachers or students, but administration by people who are not educators but financial managers (the proverbial bean-counters) whose only concern is money. This is endemic to the whole country and not just one city

+1 # dkonstruction 2012-09-18 08:00

Quoting in deo veritas:

The poor folks in Chi have had a long haul with corrupt mayors since the 1930's. except for the lady mayor they had.This guy was not to be mayor of a major city much less a presidential adviser. There is no way to isolate the educational system from the urban problems it is enveloped by that make the lives of those envolved in education so difficult. After 36 years in education I gound that the problem is not with the teachers or students, but administration by people who are not educators but financial managers (the proverbial bean-counters) whose only concern is money. This is endemic to the whole country and not just one city

Dont' forget Harold Washington

Refresh comments list
RSS feed for comments to this post

THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community.