...Chicago teachers strike inspires unionists nationwide
(From Page 4)
• Gives break time for nursing moth-
ers
• Gives teachers the right to “fol-
low” their students when school is
closed; and
• Reimburses teachers up to $250 a
year for school supplies.
The tentative agreement contains
union concessions too: It increases the
length of the school day. Laid-off
teachers will get six months severance,
down from the current 12, and poorly
rated teachers will not have seniority
protection when layoffs take place.
The Board of Education had wanted
a five-year contract, but agreed to
teachers’ proposal for a three-year con-
tract, meaning it will come up for re-
newal in the middle of the 2015 may-
oral campaign.
At the Sept. 20 forum in Portland,
speakers described the strike as an in-
spiration.
“Something’s happening in this
country that’s very exciting, and it’s not
the union movement: It’s a workers
movement,” said Oregon AFL-CIO
President Tom Chamberlain. “What
we’re seeing is the birth of community
and unions coming together and creat-
ing something that’s powerful enough
to push back against the 1 percent,
powerful enough to push back against
the mayor of Chicago.”
Gwen Sullivan, president of the
Portland Teachers Association, said the
same corporate reform movement that
targeted Illinois teachers unions is at
work in Oregon. “This is just the be-
ginning,” Sullivan said. “Keep your eye
Lead-up to the strike: A Portland connection
Chicago public school teachers
walked off the job Sept. 10, but the
stage was set for that showdown more
than a year before.
In 2010 and 2011, a coalition of “re-
form” groups with close ties to hedge
fund managers and billionaire philan-
thropists organized in Springfield, Illi-
nois to pass a state law. The law weak-
ened teacher seniority rights and job
security, and required that at least 30
percent of every public school teacher’s
evaluation be based on student test
scores. It also required a three-fourths
vote before teachers can strike, and
barred the Chicago teachers union
specifically from bargaining over
things like class size.
Heading up that coalition was the
group Stand For Children, which is
headquartered in Portland.
In a remarkable video that became
famous on YouTube, Jonah Edelman
— Stand for Children executive direc-
tor — talks for 14 minutes about how
he and his allies were able to pass the
law. Thanks to a “breach” between
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Democratic politicians and unions —
Edelman tells a friendly gathering at a
Aspen Institute conference — they
were able to divide, out maneuver and
defeat teachers unions during a lame
duck session of the Illinois Legislature.
“I can tell you there was a palpable
sense of concern if not shock on the
part of the teachers unions … that we
had clear political capability to poten-
tially jam this proposal down their
throats the same way pension reform
had been jammed down their throats
six months earlier.”
In the video, Edelman describes
how Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
helped his group split teachers unions,
and he gloats that Chicago Teachers
Union President Karen Lewis made a
“tactical miscalculation” when she
fought “to preserve her members right
to strike.” “In effect,” Edelman says,
smiling, “they wouldn’t have the ability
to strike … they will never be able to
muster the 75 percent.”
How wrong that prediction, made in
June 2011, proved to be.
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on some similarities with what’s hap-
pening with our own governor, and
what’s happening with some of the
people we call our friends.”
Roberts, the Chicago teacher, attrib-
uted the strike’s success to rank-and-
file, building-by-building organizing of
union members … and the union’s
careful work building community sup-
port for several years leading up to the
strike.
“We’ve had a perspective that our
fight is not our fight alone,” Roberts
said. “We made common cause with
the entire community to fight for equi-
table funding, to fight against school
closures, against the really unequal dis-
tribution of resources inside our school
system.”
It paid off: Polls showed support for
striking teachers from a majority of
Chicago voters — and even higher sup-
port — two-thirds — from parents with
kids in the struck schools. It helped that
CTU didn’t just say no to the reforms
Emanuel was demanding; it articulated
an alternative vision of what good edu-
cation would look like, in a white pa-
per entitled, “Schools Our Students De-
serve.”
“None of us in Chicago view this as
a Chicago Teachers Union struggle by
itself,” Roberts said. “Unions across the
country have been under attack.
They’re telling us the only alternative
Chicago Teachers Union strike participant Kirstin Roberts addresses a
Portland solidarity meeting via Skype. Leading the discussion at the meeting
are from left to right: American Federation of Teachers-Oregon Executive
Director Richard Schwarz; Northwest Oregon Labor Council Executive
Secretary-Treasurer Bob Tackett; parent activist Susan Barrett of Oregon
Save Our Schools; Portland Jobs with Justice Executive Director Margaret
Butler; and Letter Carrier Branch 82 retiree Jamie Partridge. About 100
people attended the solidarity meeting.
is to roll over and let corporate America
have its way.… We’ve just been
through round one of a very long prize
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