Massive Chicago Teachers Union Rally Takes over Downtown

[proud2BlibKansan]

By the time Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis rose and took the microphone in front of more than 4,000 of her union's 30,000 members at Chicago's iconic Auditorium Theater on May 23, 2012, the teachers from all over the schools of the third largest public school system in the USA had been meeting, cheering, and chanting for two hours. Most wearing red tee shirts emblazoned with "Chicago Teachers Union," the teachers and other school workers had come from across the city after working all day with the children of Chicago.

And as Lewis wrapped up her speech, the chants of "Strike! Strike!" and "Fight! Fight!" may have been heard as far away as Sox Park, where Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his police chief were attending a baseball game in order to try and get some additional adulation and cheap publicity following a year of the most intense teacher bashing in Chicago history.

more . . . http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/24/1094420/-Massive-Chicago-Teachers-Union-Rally-Takes-over-Downtown

[freshwest]

1. May this turn things around. Good work, teachers.

[mopinko]

2. gee, could the language get any more incendiary??

i predict a strike due to karen lewis' contentious temperament, and little more. i have no idea what teacher bashing they are even talking about.

the last teacher's strike in chicago was a black eye that it took the teacher's union 10 years to live down. this is going to be a disaster. bookmark this thread.

[HiPointDem]

3. not as incendiary as the head of Obama's Ed Dept cheering as entire schools were fired.

Noooo, that's not incendiary, but calling for a strike is.

My, my, aren't we the radical.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. +1

[Starry Messenger]

7. +2

[mopinko]

8. cheering? got a link there?

arne barely cheers at basketball games. but my comment was about language.
language like this-
"Emanuel, who had just completed a star turn for supposedly saving the city during the NATO summit, had announced earlier in the day that he and his police chief would be watching a White Sox game, a move that many observers believed was an attempt to continue drawing plaudits from crowds and to head off some of the coverage in the city's media of what the teachers were doing and what the teachers' union was planning."

i suspect rahm laughed so hard they had to call 911.

i wonder how many here even know what the issues are. it really is about the longer school day and that is about that. i think they should be fairly compensated for it. i hope the negotiations go well.
i have my doubts about karen lewis' ability to negotiate well. it feels great to raise hell, and this was a great rally. i just hope she listens to the pros on the staff, cuz ya dont raise hell at the table. like i said, public worker strikes are not popular here. they cause divisions that last decades. and in a state that voted yesterday to slash prescription drug coverage for seniors, it is going to be a tough fight.
people need to tread carefully and keep their dignity about them.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. The longer school day is only one issue.

When Rahm became mayor, he rescinded the raise the teachers had been promised and gave it to top level overpaid administrators. Kind of like bonuses going to investment firm executives while employees get nothing.

The teachers are being asked to increase the length of their work day without an increase in pay for the additional time. So they are being asked to work for free.

That's not exactly reflective of Democratic party values, now is it? And this man was Obama's chief of staff? LOL

Then there's the school library issue. Honestly, I can't even imagine an elementary school without a library. But in spite of years of requesting libraries be put in elementary buildings, the teachers are ignored.

How selfish of teachers to actually believe children should be able to check out books in a school library!

Then there is the class size issue. Rachel Maddow did an excellent job discussing this last night - Mitt Romney is proposing increased class sizes as part of his education platform. Yes, the guy who is running for the REPUBLICAN presidential nomination wants to increase class size, just like Rahm, who is supposedly a Democrat. If Rahm wasn't so busy being mayor, he could be a Romney adviser.

Oh wait, he's probably too busy laughing.

[mopinko]

11. teachers are not being asked to work without additional pay.

some schools did it this year, even tho they worked under the same contract. but from day one rahm said that compensation would be negotiated, and that there would be extra pay.
there is no proposal that i have heard of or can find to increase class sizes.
although there may be schools without libraries, they would be the exception. i have certainly never seen one. most classrooms have their own as well.
although the cola was rescinded, every teacher gets a raise every year because they are automatically compensated for the extra year of experience. since pretty much every state employee of any sort got a cut or at least no raise, that one doesn't get a lot of sympathy.

and seriously, this should not be falling on rahm's head. it is the state of illinois that is screwing the city of chicago. property taxes can only go so far. the proper place to get this money is springfield, and they are slashing medicaid providers and poor seniors.

you aren't really trying to tell me that they are striking for libraries, are you? lets have a little intellectual honesty here.

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. You're the one who claimed this was about ONE issue.

You said "it really is about the longer school day and that is about that."

I presented several more issues the teachers are concerned about. Then you say I'm telling you the strike is about libraries? Huh?

I visited Whittier School last year when I was in Chicago. The parents there were occupying a building on the school grounds and had turned it into a library full of their own children's books. It was one of the saddest things I had ever seen in my life. And you live in Chicago and you didn't KNOW about this?

Nearly one in four Chicago public elementary schools and more than fifty high schools don't have staffed, in-school libraries. Parents at one school were so incensed, they occupied a school building for more than a month to pressure city officials to add one. School officials say they value libraries, but in an era of tight budgets, they often lose out to other priorities.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131208982

Maybe you should try actually talking to teachers there. That's where I get my information. I figure the ones who actually voted to strike would know why the vote was taken. Just a hunch.

[wilsonbooks]

6. and rahm has an even temperament?

If you don't stand up to bullies they win. If you fight you may lose but at least you will have your dignity and you make a point and force a dialogue. The goal of the neo libs is to eliminate the free public education system in our country. Do you share their goal?

[mopinko]

9. nope

rahm isn't being a bully. he is doing what he was elected by 70% of the very democratic people of the city of chicago to do- keep things moving in tough times. and this isn't the school yard. this is a system that is at the heart of much that happens in chicago, families not the least. a strike will shake the economy as people scramble to take care of their kids without the schools. there are a lot of unions that could go on strike without too much disruption, but teachers are right up there with cops and firefighters. they need to take that seriously and not just be saber rattling.
the root of this, btw, is not on rahm's head, but in springfield. decades of republican rule have turned the constitutional requirement that the state pay the "majority" of the costs of the schools into "more than other bodies" or some such stupidity and they now pay about 1/3.

i support free public schools, tho i don't think there is any magic in a bloated bureaucracy running them. in fact, the bureaucracy here does a shitty job. snake pits abound. any end run around that shit gets a round of applause from me.

[iemitsu]

5. good luck to the chicago teachers.

strikes aren't fun but more of them need to take place.
i started this school year on strike. it was tough but students, parents and many in the community were on our side. after two weeks the governor stepped in and the teachers/school employees won the day.
it is not hard to see that teachers and public schools are being used as scapegoats.
i find it hard to support obama for a second term because of his attitude toward teachers.
i will vote for him but only grudgingly.

[Reader Rabbit]

13. I wish every teachers union in the country would do this.

Until teachers start standing up for themselves, they will continue to be punching bags for those with money and power. More militancy from unions is a good first step.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. I got to march with them last summer when I was there

They have great solidarity in Chicago. It was just an awesome event.