Teacher's Union Overwhelmingly Votes To Allow Another Strike

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Dec 14, 2015 4:24PM

The Chicago Teachers Union has overwhelmingly voted to authorize a teachers' strike if the city doesn't meet its contract negotiation demands.

Over 96 percent of the union's 27,000-some members voted in favor of a strike, with a 92 percent voter turnout, CTU vice president Jesse Sharkey announced in a Monday morning press conference. Thousands of public school teachers voted last week to determine whether the union would be able to hold another strike, and the union needed at least 75 percent of its members to vote yes on a strike.

The union held a massive, historic strike in the fall of 2012 when contract negotiations with the city broke down. With its contract expiring again, union leaders say they will threaten a strike if the school board doesn't acquiesce to their demands, which include preventing layoffs.

The union has been negotiating a new contract with the city and trying to stave off thousands of potential job cuts, looming in part because of the state's seemingly unending budget impasse. Just because a strike has been authorized doesn't mean teachers will be flooding the streets in red shirts at any moment. The Teachers Union House of Delegates must now set a strike date for sometime in the future.

"Members of the Chicago Teachers Union do not want to strike, but we will if you do not listen to us," Sharkey said, echoing the vote's message to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and public schools chief Forrest Claypool. "Do not cut our schools, do not layoff our staff to solve the budget problem on the backs of educators."

The earliest the union could strike would be late March or early April, according to Sharkey. And depending on how contract negotiations go between now and then, a strike might not come until the start of the 2016 school year.

With the city reeling from numerous revelations of police brutality and misconduct in the Chicago Police Department and protesters holding near-daily marches and rallies to call for the mayor's resignation, a teachers union strike would be a watershed moment for the city and another undeniable sign of dissatisfaction with Emanuel's leadership.

Sharkey said the union is hoping the city will raise new revenue to fund the schools as the city weathers a local and state budget crisis. He also suggest Emanuel use his political clout to raise the money.

"The [school] board is saying they have no money, and we agree with that. They've got a real problem there," he said. "If you have a billion dollars, would you lend it to the Board of Education right now?"

Sharkey said the union's predicament is inseparable from the other big problem facing the city: the ongoing reports of police brutality and misconduct that came to a head with the release of a video depicting a cop fatally shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald.

"If we want to try to avoid more Laquan McDonalds, we better do a better job with our schools. We better do a better job with our social services," Sharkey said. "We should be part of the solution."