Chicago teachers union reviewing last-minute contract offer
CHICAGO The president of the Chicago Teachers Union said late Monday the union was reviewing a new contract proposal from Chicago Public Schools, but it was too early to say if it would be enough to avert a Tuesday morning strike in the nation’s third-largest school district.
Union President Karen Lewis described the offer as “significantly better” than the one the financially struggling CPS made and the union rejected earlier this year. She declined to outline the proposal, but said the district had addressed a lot of the issues the union has raised.
The CTU has directed its roughly 28,000 members to report to picket lines Tuesday morning unless they hear otherwise from union negotiators, who have said negotiations could continue until midnight.
All 652 schools will be open during normal school hours for the district’s 400,000 students if there is a strike, CPS said. It would be the district’s second major strike since 2012.
Asked what she would tell parents who are staying up late to find out what will happen, Lewis apologized, saying the union received the written proposal from CPS less than two hours before the 10 p.m. news conference and negotiators were going through it line-by-line.
“I’m always optimistic,” she said. “I would say this: Prepare for the worst and pray for the best.”
Chicago parents will be looking for a way to keep their kids occupied if the teachers decide to strike, CBS Chicago reports.
The Garcea family has four kids in CPS, and dad Arunflo Garcea says tomorrow’s plans are still up in the air. He may have to stay home from work and says he’s “kind of nervous.”
Raymond Paredes supports the teachers but admits the strike is a bit of an inconvenience.
“They are the ones that help shape the youth for the future, and they get short-handed so many times by the city,” he says.
There are numerous schools set to stay open even if a strike takes place.
There are also programs at YMCAs and at Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago.
The two sides held negotiations throughout the weekend. On Monday afternoon, teachers picked up strike placards and painted banners. Earlier in the day, parents and other supporters rallied across from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home.
“Nobody wants to go on strike but I think the teachers finally said ‘Enough is enough,’” said Nate Rasmussen, a preschool teacher at Beasley Elementary School on the city’s South Side. He said the district’s 2013 closing of some 50 schools, layoffs of thousands of teachers in recent years and other spending cuts have made the job tougher.
Teachers have been without a contract since June 2015. The union wants no cuts to salary or benefits and an additional $200 million - or $500 per student - in spending to ensure adequate staffing and “to accommodate the needs of our children,” Lewis said on Friday.
CPS has said it is working within the framework of a January offer, which included pay increases and a cap on privately operated charter schools but would require teachers to contribute more to their pension costs. The union turned it down in February.
CPS officials say the district is facing serious financial constraints, due largely to soaring pension costs and a flawed state school funding formula.
Emanuel said Monday that both sides are trying to find a way to ensure school is in session Tuesday.
“The good news is, everybody’s got their sleeves rolled up working toward an honest agreement that reflects everybody’s interest,” he said. “My interests are to make sure our kids are in school learning and continue to make educational gains and do it in a way that reflects the budget constraints we’re all living under.”
About two-dozen people with Parents 4 Teachers rallied in Emanuel’s leafy Ravenswood neighborhood on the city’s North Side. Several children, off school due to Columbus Day, also were there.
Organizer Erica Hade has several children in the public school system and lives across the street from a school. She said she sees teachers arriving for work at 6 a.m. and leaving 12 hours later.
“How can parents not be supportive of teachers?” she said.
One theme struck by several at the rally was the perception that Emanuel focuses inordinately on wooing businesses to Chicago. At one point, protesters chanted, “Mayor Emanuel, we’re no fools. If there’s money for developers, there’s money for schools.”
People went door to door handing out cards that listed issues they saw as critical, such as enforceable class-size limits, a moratorium on charter-schools expansion and no cuts to teachers’ pay. Jim Tormey, a 52-year-old father of two children who attend CPS, spoke with the demonstrators. Afterward, he said he had some sympathy for teachers but that his feelings were mixed.
“There are ebbs and flows in that sympathy,” he said. “We love our teachers, but we want our kids not to miss school because of a strike.”
During the last major strike in 2012, teachers were out for seven school days.