Stand for Children’s Jonah Edelman thought he had outfoxed the CTU with SB7 strike requirements. He never understood unions.
When Jonah Edelman and Stand for Children came to Illinois, one of their main agenda items was to make our teacher unions impotent. He targeted Chicago teachers’ right to strike.
He was helped by some of our own IEA leadership who sat on the committee that led to Senate Bill 7.
Senate Bill 7, among other things, set a high bar for Chicago teachers to Strike.
75% had to vote yes.
It shows how little Edelman understands unions. When we took a strike vote in 2003, we knew before the vote exactly how many teachers would vote yes. We had no intention of walking out if we only had a simple majority of our members supporting a strike. What ever we did, we were doing it together.
The leadership of the CTU has been doing internal polling of their members.
What they are reporting is that support for a strike, if it comes to that, is overwhelming.
CTU spokeswoman Stephanie Gadlin said members at several schools were polled.
“The preliminary results indicate that if a strike vote were held today, teachers in those schools would vote unanimously for a walkout,” Gadlin said.
The new law signed by the governor last summer also requires several steps be taken before a strike.
The two sides are now in mediation. If those talks break down either side could request the creation of a three-member panel that would review the final offers of both sides. That process would take over 75 days to complete.
CPS and the CTU remain far apart on teacher salaries. The union went into talks last with a request for a 30 percent raise over two years. The district is offering a 2 percent raise next year and an eventual move to a merit pay system that would reward teachers for working in low-income schools and taking hard-to-fill positions.
CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said it’s still too early in negotiations to talk about a strike.
Fred Klonsky 
Our last contract talks in Philly were so frustrating, as the Superintendent kept starting from scratch each time she “brought in a new team..” We finally got a contract with raise increases, and we’re not permitted to strike. I don’t ever remember getting more than a 4%.
raise and those were the old days.
Chicago teachers will strike and should, Emmanuel and others have underratted Chicago. He will learn a severe lesson soon, hopefully the police unions and the firemen should get involved. If they do Rahms political fuure is in trouble. This is a very important time. Please teachers ,Cops and firefighters hold firm and send this guy back to Wilmette.
My family and I are hurting. I am a NBCT (Mathematics/Early Adolescence) with a MAT, and another Master’s Degree in Mathematics Education – fifteen years of service and I was “laid off” with a bogus unsatisfactory rating, June 2011. In addition, I lost my medical and dental benefits. My wife a former special education teacher was given a “Do Not Hire” DNH for a bogus reason. Schools will not hire me because of the unsatisfactory rating, even though I successfully passed several interviews, and my wife now works as a part-time security guard. Why should our daughter have to suffer through this?