Why Chicago Teachers are Striking

The Chicago Teachers Union has been attempting to negotiate a fair contract since last November.  Teachers have been working without a contract since June 30.  Should there be a strike, it is not simply about compensation, although the Board of Education has proposed combining wage and health care proposals, resulting in a net loss in salary.  Although legally the union can only strike over compensation issues, this strike is very much a fight to defend a quality public education for every Chicago student.  It is, as CTU President Karen Lewis has declared, a struggle “for the soul of public education.”

In ten months of negotiation, the Board has refused to negotiate over core union issues that would create, as the union’s hallmark study declared “The Schools that Chicago’s Students Deserve.”   The Board refuses to negotiate over classroom size; over having a nurse and social worker in every school; over having a library in every school; and over funding neighborhood schools instead of its drive to privatize public education through creating scores of non-union charter schools where teachers and parents have no voice. This is a strike that teachers and advocates of workers’ rights and supporters of public education across the nation are closely watching.

On the first day of the strike, thousands of teachers picketed outside their schools in the morning. 

In the afternoon, over 10,000 teachers and allies marched in downtown Chicago, rallying at CPS, and then surrounding City Hall.

Arise Chicago staff and members have been supporting the Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign at strike headquarters, making banners, marching with teachers, and more.  See how to get involved below.

What You Can Do to Support Teachers:

• Each day of the strike, you can join teachers on the picket lines at every school from 6:30 to 10:30am.  Click here for list sorted by school or by zip code.
• Volunteer at the Chicago Teachers Union Strike Solidarity Center at Teamsters Auditorium at 300 S. Ashland to make signs and banners, organize donations, help with sign distribution, sign-up to leaflet materials, help with banner drops, etc. Call Luke for details: 616-745-5134 or just show up.
• Join teachers and supporters to rally and march every day. Check out CTU’s Strike Central for daily action updates.
• Offer public prayers for and blessings of teachers in your house of worship and invite a teacher to speak.
• Pick up your CTU support signs at Teamsters Auditorium at 300 S. Ashland to put in your window or yard and distribute signs to coffee shops, work places, etc.  For those driving by, pick-up on Van Buren, just west of Ashland, is possible without getting out of your car.
• Call Gus or Daisy at Primo’s Pizza at (312) 243-1052, a locally owned and teacher-friendly restaurant to make a donation by credit card so teachers and supporters at the Solidarity Center can have pizza, pasta, and salads delivered to them.  Consider pooling donations with others and making just one phone call.  Please try not call during peak hours of 11:45 to 1:15.  Donations have already been called in from around the country!
• Call Mayor Emanuel at 312-744-330 or CPS CEO Brizard at 773-553-1500 to tell them that CPS students deserve smaller class sizes, more libraries and computers, and that the teachers deserve a fair contract.
• Wear red every day, even if you are not able to join the marches.
• Sign up to get the latest news:
• Facebook:  www.facebook.com/ChicagoTeachersSolidarity
• Twitter: @CTSCampaign or @AriseChicago
• Website: ctscampaign.weebly.com
• CTU Strike Central
• Questions?  Email:  ChicagoTeachersSolidarity@gmail. com
• Text message updates: text @ctsc2012 to 23559 to receive strike and picket updates

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Chicago Charter School Fights to Stay Open

By Aziza Nassar

May 31- A week after the teachers and staff at the Youth Connection Leadership Academy (YCLA) received a letter notifying them that the school be closed or restructured, they held a press conference with parents, students, and supporters before the school’s Board meeting to urge the Board to reject this decision.

Just two days before receiving the letter, the staff at the alternative high school in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood informed their employer of their decision to form a union. Teachers and staff made this decision in order to have a voice in their school. YCLA is a charter school, and one of the twenty-two campuses that Youth Connection Charter School (YCCS) manages.  As a charter, the teachers are not part of the Chicago Teachers Union, and previous to their vote, had no union representation.

A complaint was filed on May 25^th by the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers (or Chicago ACTS), who strongly turned out other charter school teachers with signs and messages of support Thursday night despite the rain and chilly weather.  Arise Chicago’s Board member, John Thomas, spoke at the press conference, expressing Arise Chicago’s solidarity and the moral support of the religious community.

Inside the board meeting, teachers, students, and family members showed their concern about closing down the school.  Fifteen year old Jameel Marshall, a student at YCLA said,  “By shutting down our school, they’re taking away our education—leaving no where for us to go but out in the street and forcing us to do bad things.”

For many students, YCLA is their home away from home.  The students and their education are the main priority for the dedicated YLCA teachers. Nicole Durham, a YLCA graduate and current teacher said, “We felt the need to unionize because we want to have a stable body of qualified teachers.”

A grandmother of a current YLCA student addressed the board pleading with them not to close the school.  She said the school and its staff had been extremely supportive of her grandchild, and recognized that his success was due to dedicated teachers., “I’ve seen these teachers here until 7:30, 8:30 at night! They care about these kids.”

At the end of the meeting the Board elected not to take action to close the school or take any other action at the time.  Chicago ACTS ,the union whom the YCLA staff elected to join, found this as a positive action, in conjunction with the positive statements from the Board expressing no desire to close the school.  According to a press advisory from the union:

”YCCS was correct in stepping away from a hasty decision to close or restructure the campus, an action that YCLA staff believe would have harmed YCLA students and staff and would have been motivated by the staff’s recent decision to unionize.”

Therefore, Chicago ACTS decided to ask the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board “to hold in abeyance the unfair labor practice charge which ACTS had filed on May 25.”  That charge had been made after YCCS told YLCA teachers and staff (via overnight mail) that they were recommending closing or restructuring the school.

While some left the Board meeting feeling uncertain about the school’s future, by the next day, YLCA teachers, staff and Chicago ACTS felt confident they could move forward to keep the school open and work toward achieving stability and respect in the school for all students and staff.

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-Aziza is the Zakat Intern at Arise Chicago

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Negotiations on Hold for CMSA Teachers

By Angelica Cardoso

Today a protest comprised of teachers, community activists and unionists was held outside the office of Sulejman F. Dizdarevic – Board member at Chicago Mathematics and Science Academy.  He, along with fellow Board members, is refusing to recognize the union voted for by teachers at the north side charter school. Teachers state they voted for a union in order to have a voice on the job and create a better learning environment for their students.

Community leaders entered the building to deliver a letter to Mr. Dizdarevic at his downtown law office asking him to follow the law by recognizing the union.  After entering the building the group was denied access to Mr. Dizdarevic’s office.  The teachers and others involved in the cause will continue to ask the board members to change their decision.  Read more about the teacher’s story here.

- Angelica is an organizing intern at Arise Chicago

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