Thousands March With Chicago Teachers Union
By Samantha Abernethy in News on May 25, 2012 9:05PM
More than 5,000 people marched with the Chicago Teachers Union in the Loop Wednesday evening. The teachers and supporters marched through the streets with chants of "Hey hey, ho ho, Rahm Emanuel's got to go" and carrying signs demanding fair pay, specifically the 4 percent pay raise the teachers were denied in 2011 as Mayor Rahm Emanuel pushed for longer school days.
Earlier in the day Mayor Emanuel himself said he wants to see teachers paid well. “Chicago teachers deserve a pay raise," he said. "They work very hard. Chicago schoolchildren do not deserve a strike. We are working with an independent arbitrator” to accomplish both. Also on Wednesday, CPS brought on an education advisor, who will make $21,500 per month. That's more than CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard makes. Former Cleveland public schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett was brought on to advise school officials while they do a national search for a new chief education officer to replace Noemi Donoso, who resigned in April.
Emanuel has been clashing with Lewis and the CTU since the day he came into office. As we've noted before, clashes between labor and government picked up last year, nationwide as well as in Chicago. We think it's curious and symbolic that the first labor fight Emanuel picked was with the CTU. His new CPS CEO Brizard was an advocate of questionable "reforms" such as charterization during his tenure as head of the Rochester City Schools, and he had a history of clashing with the teachers union there. Emanuel has been able to control the media message in his union fight, and Lewis has proved to be the only labor head willing to stand up to him.
CTU apparently had tried to book the United Center for Wednesday's rally, but settled for dual rallies to boost union members' enthusiasm as they enter final contract negotiations.. The Auditorium Theatre filled to capacity (about 4,000 people), so the rest of the supporters gathered in the plaza at Michigan and Congress across the street. Inside CTU president Karen Lewis addressed the crowd. "He stole your 4 percent raise. Then he cussed me out!" she said, referring to that heated exchange the two had in September. Afterwards, the two groups converged and lined up to march north on Michigan Avenue. They turned left onto Adams, then south onto LaSalle, culminating at the Chicago Board of Trade building.
There the CTU rally encountered folks who were marching to protest the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's shareholders' meet. The combination of the two movements was meant to symbolize government's willingness to bow to corporate interests with tax breaks, while refusing to bow to the teachers' union. We could barely tell if the CME protesters were there, though, because they paled in numbers to the sea of red CTU t-shirts worn by the crowd.