Talks Break Down For New Chicago Teachers Contract
(CBS) -- Contract talks for Chicago Public Schools teachers have suddenly gone from nearly done to complete collapse.
The major disagreement is over non-economic issues, CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday urged the teachers to come back to the table, while the Chicago Teachers Union said the mayor was up to his old tricks, trying to make them scapegoats.
"Today, we have found out their bargaining rhetoric is as empty as their bank accounts," CTU President Karen Lewis said at a news conference.
It was the CTU that announced late Thursday afternoon that the talks had broken off. CPS Interim CEO Jesse Ruiz explained why.
"They're trying to roll back some of the increases that we've had in our classroom by lowering standards and evaluations for thousands of employees," he tells Levine.
Ruiz says teachers had agreed there would be no raises for the coming year.
Even with that issue out of the way, he says the fate of the system and teachers' jobs depends on the final state budget and how much it allocates to CPS.
The irony here is that after the brutal battle and strike three years ago, over money and hours, they are not the issues this time.