A funny kind of boss.

When someone in the press writes about a union leader they will inevitably refer to her as a “labor boss.”

Watching Karen Lewis and CTU VP Jesse Sharkey on TV, standing before the assembled reporters at about 6:45 yesterday afternoon, I thought to myself, “What an amazing group they have proven to be.”

It was clear to me that they had gone into the House of Delegates meeting with the intention of getting tentative approval of the contract they had worked on since last November.

Listen. I’ve done this. You don’t take an agreement back unless you believe in your heart of hearts that it is the best you can get. If may not be everything you want or need. But if you think it is the best you can get, you take it and start planning for the next battle.

I have also been wrong. Members have told me no, and sent our bargaining team back. And we did do a little better.

But you don’t say no to a boss. Karen Lewis and the CTU leadership are not any kind of bosses.

They are democrats. I wasn’t in the room, but I know that they presented their case. The members of the House of Delegates argued theirs. In the end a majority told the leadership that they wanted more time to look at the deal. Karen said it wasn’t her job to sell what they got. “I’m not a salesman,” she told the reporters.

Then Karen Lewis came out to a press conference and said that good leaders must trust the wisdom of the members. That they must trust the process.

She said that they would take two more days to make it right.

Karen said that there was a gorilla in the room. That gorilla was the Mayor, who all weekend had goaded her members with threats of school closings.

I say he had goaded them almost as if he wanted them to turn the deal down.

All week he chomped at the bit to get an injunction. He almost died to go to some Democratic Party hack judge. To have a judge wink and agree that the public’s safety was threatened. That the strike was illegal.

Rahm had been pissing in his pants to show the teachers who the boss in this town is.

He may find that judge. They’re not that hard to find in this city famous for the done deal.

But the CTU members will still take their time to read the agreement.

Hack judge’s order or no.