Chicago Teachers Set Strike Date
 

Teachers in the Chicago schools are going on strike in seven days if a contract agreement will not be reached. There is a lot of misinformation being put out there right now, because the local media is extremely Rahm-friendly, but the teachers are afraid of huge class sizes (up to 55 kids), increased testing, and an increase of outsourcing educational functions to technology firms tied to King Emanuel.

Today, as we all enjoy our Labor Day holiday, I hope everyone will take a moment to educate themselves on all that unions have accomplished for every one of us, and, if you wish to form an opinion on the CPS strike, to seek out publications that tell both sides of the story.

I stand with Chicago teachers.

Apparently I shouldn't be appalled when I see a roster of 29 students.... wow. 55?

Yes. State lawmakers have passed a law (at Rahm's urging) to say that can't be negotiated, along with a bunch of other things. So, the teachers are holding out in salary negotiations as their only lever to get that changed. It's being reported as "Chicago teachers demand 30% raise", but really, they want lawmakers to give them a fair deal, and salary is the only negotiation point they have.

Good luck to them! It's hard enough teaching a class of 20, let alone 55. By the time you finish babysitting, combating cell phones, etc. there won't be any time left for teaching. ....How on earth are the physical classrooms large enough to accommodate this? About 5 years ago I had a few classes of 32 and 33. I only had room for 28 desks in my room. Luckily at the HS level you CAN get by with having kids sit on the ledge in the back of the room. Definitely not ideal, but 55? that's insane. I'm only even thinking of high school. 55 1st graders would make me want to crawl into a corner and rock in the fetal position. That'd be a crazy amount of nose picking. Ewwwwwwww.

I hope the Chicago teachers use social media to let the public know what the real issues are. It's a very powerful outlet that isn't dependent on news sources.

Cuts to education are leading to similar situations all over. My kids have been in classes of 40 kids in high school routinely as cuts keep getting deeper.

Michigan has a ballot proposal that might be on the ballot in November (it is tied up in courts right now) about keeping the right to collective bargaining. These are the kinds of reasons it is important.

Unbelievable that Chicago keeps electing the same idiots and expecting things to get better.

I hope the CPS teachers continue the good fight! These huge class sizes and continued under-funding don't allow teachers to teach or students to get a quality education.

Lol, I actually live about a half mile outside city limits, but in fairness to Chicagoans, their other choice was Carol Moseley Braun.

Single-party rule is never a good thing. I've also never been a big fan of the 'strong mayor' municipal government. Especially when you're talking about what are for all practical purposes city-states. There's just too much power in one place.

Absolutely. My husband gathered a lot of signatures for that petition, and the canvassing board voted along party lines (2-2) as to whether it could go on the ballot. I thought that they should be impartial, but apparently not. Now it's in the courts, but I think it will move forward. The Court of Appeals voted in favor...now it's at the Michigan Supreme Court.

Well, the streets get plowed!

It's too bad the greedy UAW has ruined the word "union". ALL for teachers unions, police unions, fire unions. But you and I both know "union" is a bad word around here.

The ballot proposal is because of efforts to bust the police, fire and teacher unions though.

We have unions to thank for a lot. We wouldn't have the pay we have, the holidays, weekends, and benefits that we have if they hadn't fought for those things for their people. The only reason I get raises, bonuses and half of my holidays is because the employees who are bargaining unit employees fight for them. Us non bargaining unit folks get to go for that ride because of their bargaining.

Union is only a bad word to people who don't recognize the advantages of them. Remember the newspaper strike? Lots of people canceled the paper because it was being produced by scabs. Lots of people won't shop at Walmart because they are non-union. It's not a bad word to everybody.

Preface: This is not an attack or rant against PM_Mama00, but something that i felt I needed to share. Please read it with my voice being calm and collected.


I'm really hoping that you used "greedy UAW" in a sarcastic sense.

The UAW gets a lot of blame and a lot of misinformation directed toward them. My father worked for GM (in a parts plant) for 30 years and was a proud member of UAW for that time. UAW made sure that my father was paid a working wage (which was only $15/hour when he retired), had health benefits that didn't put us in the poor house on public welfare when I was in the hospital for a week with salmonella poisoning at age 9 (from a pet turtle - who knew?), and contributed toward a pension for his time spent working (which is only about $1200 a month).

When the auto industry was in danger of complete collapsing, the UAW granted many concessions in order to save jobs and the industry. The pensioners lost their health care from GM. UAW picked up the health care of all the retirees.

UAW saw that my father received a livable wage, health benefits, job protection (Yes, union employees can be fired from their jobs, but the unions make sure that policies are followed and not just because a boss has taken a dislike to an employee), and let him be able to put 4 kids through college- with 3 of them becoming teachers (something that my dad is extremely proud of).

Oh, and the "greedy UAW", has fought for equal positions and pay for women and minority workers, equal protection for religious and sexual orientation, and other protections.

Those are all the good things the union has done. No one can deny that. My problem with them now is that they keep pushing and pushing and pushing. It's not about making things fair for the employee (which was their original intent), it's about squeezing the company for any penny they can get. Why is someone with barely a high school education, standing there pushing a button all day, making $23/hr? And why is someone who wasn't even with the company (GM) a year offered a $77,000 buyout? That's more than twice my salary and I have a bachelors degree and work for an automotive supplier! Yes the union is there to prevent the big wigs from taking advantage of the laborer, but I think some things have gotten out of hand. Ever talk to a UAW worker who's been laid off or took a buyout and was now looking for a job? $15/hr is below them. They will never find a job outside of working the line for $20something/hr with the education they have. This is a story from someone I knew who WHINED that after taxes, they only got $47,000. (ETA: the execs have also milked these companies dry. I can't believe how much some of them make and how many free cars they get, but a lot of those people worked their way up and have huge responsibilities. Either way, EVERYONE should've taken pay cuts, from the top down to the bottom)

And on the other hand, I see our fire and police departments dwindling down. I see their pensions being threatened to be taken away. I see my teacher friends with classroom sizes in the 30s. Those are unions I can get behind, not ones that milked a company so dry that they had to have the government bail them out. What your dad has gone through, that's not how it is anymore.

The UAW did accept a two tier pay system so new guys hired in make only $14 an hour. And honestly, it is very difficult to raise a family on $23 an hour. They do some things that seem greedy, but all in all, they made salaries higher for everybody... both blue and white collar employees.

Issues with the auto companies go far beyond the UAW. The very fact that they have to compete with foreign auto companies who don't have to pay a dime for health care for their employees puts them at a distinct disadvantage.

Oh, the things I could do if EITHER my husband or I was making $23/hour. Unless you're talking single income home, in which case, it still isn't that hard. Yeah, you might not get a large family vacation every year, and your kid(s) may have to choose between soccer OR band, but it's certainly no where near poverty.

PM_Mama and AlphaFrog-

$23 times 40 = $920 for a week's pay.

$920 times 4 = $3680 for the month.

$3680 times 67% (which is the average take home pay after taxes, insurance contribution, etc.) = $2465 for a month

$2465 times 12 = $29580 for a year's take home pay.

$29580 to buy groceries, gas, rent (or home mortgage if lucky), utilities, etc. Most people would have trouble making due on that as a single person. Now, add in a family. Even if your spouse is making a 2nd income, it's still going to be tough.

Even if your mortgage/rent was $1200/month (would be very middle class where I live), that still leaves you $1,200 for expenses. Can you live large on that? Obviously not, but you could live economically on that. Might mean no cable and no eating out. But no one owes you that stuff.

I know what I'm talking about, because my husband and I together don't make much more than $23/ hour since he had to take a huge cut in pay when the restaurant he was working for shut down. We luckily have a low mortgage payment, but we also put money in the savings account every month as well.

Because if I don't have it no one else can. Great argument.

And we don't even have to talk about money. I, for one, enjoy my 40-hour work week, my appropriate safety training and equipment, and the occasional holiday.

In fact, when I purchase a vehicle, I'm glad it was made by skilled workers!

Maybe COL in Michigan isn't what it is in Cook County, etc.? I can tell y'all that in OKC, $30K can go a pretty long way as far as being able to provide for the necessities. That said, I earn quite a bit more than that amount and couldn't imagine making it on a penny less. I probably could, but I wouldn't want to try.

Perhaps. My mortgage is $1000, car payment is $244. I own the kids' car outright but my car insurance is $385 a month. Right now, gas is costing me $320 a month for both cars. I haven't even gotten to the $200 a month for utilities. We're at $2149 of the 2500 a month and we haven't eaten, bought clothes, had home or car repairs or anything. Pretty tough to raise a family on that here. Oh yeah...and tuition, Boy Scout camps, they all add up really fast. And in the days when I paid day care? That was $1000 a month alone. Can people live on it? Yes. Is it a comfortable middle class income? No. It is low enough to qualify for reduced lunch.

30K is not much in Cook County. I make a couple grand more than that and between rent, student loans, and savings it's often a tight squeeze every month. I also have the added luxury of not having kids or a car.

I have worked in 2 CPS schools--one a charter school and the other an elementary school. It's not easy being a CPS teacher with 29 kids in your classroom, much less 55. I also stand with Chicago teachers.

55 is a big number
 

I can't blame those teachers for making a big deal out of possibly having 55 kids in a classroom. I can imagine that parents aren't loving it either! When I was a teacher in a traditional honors/gifted classroom, I had one class of 36 gifted kids. I didn't even have enough room for that amount of desks and would have kids sitting in folding chairs while sharing a desk with a classmate. For exams, I would have kids using my desk. I had two honors classes that had 33 kids each. Florida has a class size amendment in place, but that does not apply to social studies classes and I would shoot daggers with my eyes at the language arts, math, and science teachers who complained about having 23-25 kids in a class.

As a virtual school teacher, I have 350 students. We don't have a union (charter school). My heart goes out to those teachers. Sadly, salary negotiation is the only bargaining chip that teachers have.

Boy and I glad I work in DoDEA. We have a powerful union, awesome pay, pretty decent benefits and small class sizes.

That being said, I have worked public school and what the states are doing is downright pathetic! I remember when Napalitano was governor she pissed the republicans off so much as everytime they tried to send her a budget that included an excessive amount of cuts to education, she sent it back and told them to "cut from someplace else". She advocated for education. But yet when Brewer took over, the first thing she made cuts too, education.

I find it so pathetic that we live in a country that has these insane rules for teachers and requirements for teachers to meet, yet we do not put our money where our mouths are. We would rather continue to fund a going on 12 year war. (Just an FYI, I'm not saying don't fund the military, but this war in Afghanistan/Iraq is beyond old now, we just need to bring our men and women home).

I only have 15 kids in my room, but even 15 I don't feel like I'm doing my job sufficiently. I've got a kid who doesn't know his alphabet all the way to a child who is reading/comprehending at a 3rd grade level with everything in between. I have like 5 kids on medication in my class (adhd). I cannot imagine having 55 first graders with all of that. I'd lose my frickin mind and probably say "screw education".

The reality is, teachers don't get into teaching for the money, but we would like to be valued for what we do. We would like to be able to survive without having to take out personal loans or have 2nd/3rd jobs to make ends meat. If I went to public, I would take about a 27k paycut. With the cost of living in the town I'm living in, there is no way I could survive without having 2 or more roommates.

I say more power to the teachers of CPS. I may not be in CPS but as a fellow teacher I support you 100%!

I'm sorry, Jess, you don't know what you're talking about. You may be able to live comfortably on this where you live. I know you've lived in Illinois before, but you don't now. You don't live in Cook County, I do, and after taxes and benefits, I'll make about 31,000.00 this year. My husband lost his job a while ago; he is able to make some money teaching on a per diem basis at one of the community colleges. I don't know what gas is where you live, but it's $4.23/gallon here. We try and fill up in Will County when possible, since it can be anywhere from .10 to .45 cheaper, depending on the day. My monthly train ticket runs $149.50. Driving downtown would be much more expensive. We have cable and internet, our mortgage is $1150 and our oldest is in preschool, which is running us about $290 a month. Do we have money left over? A bit, but it's hard. We cut coupons, follow sales, and get a lot of the kids' clothes at second hand stores. I don't know what's gonna happen if we have a major problem with our cars or an illness.

As for the CPS strike, I know several CPS teachers. They don't want to strike, but they feel they don't have a choice. They simply cannot be effective as things stand now.

Who doesn't? No one has said that the original intent of the Unions was bad.

I don't care wh knows what I make. Like I said, I have a bachelors degree. I've been at my company, an automotive supplier, for 2 years. I make $28/year. I don't know how people manage to survive on that, but I can't. So much so that I'm still stuck living with my parents. I am grossly underpaid. So forgive me if i don't feel bad for someone with barely a high school education making more than twice per hour than I do, to sit and push a button all day. They make in the $20s/hr and have awesome benefits and so far a pension, while my classmates and I have struggled to find decent paying jobs. Hell some of the UAW make more than those in the skilled trades. There are teachers and firemen who are paid less. Depending on what someone does on the line, I wouldn't call them a skilled worker. I'd call them lucky that they got in there. (for those who don't know, you have to basically know someone to get into the Big 3. you don't just apply)

And, perhaps it's only those of us living in the Detroit area that know what some of those workers are doing on their lunch? And who protected their asses from getting canned? The UAW. Yes, it was only SOME that got caught, a fraction of how many people actually work at the plants. But those SOME are working on the car that you drive every day with your family and kids and pets and whatever else you drive around. Plus, who knows how many others never got caught? They should be drug tested every year for what they are working on, but I'm sure the UAW would block that thought immediately.

Going back to the teacher thing, 55 kids per class?! I didn't have that many in my college classes. That's insane!

Sorry Dee I completely missed your post when I replied. I agree with the competition part. It sucks. And bravo to starting new guys at $14.

The $23/hour came from the Michiganders talking about the auto industry. I'm not talking about living on $23 in Chicago - that's a completely different market than where that figure came from. There are two albeit related topics going on in this thread: Chicago teachers and UAW/unions. I was responding to the UAW part. Detroit is comparable to where I live near Charlotte, NC where you could live on $23/hour.

Sorry that was my fault lol

And, honestly, I meant to say that it is tough to raise on a family on $14/hour. $23 is doable, but it's far from comfortable, especially with day care expenses, etc. The auto workers do make a crap ton more than that, in all honesty, because they get a lot of overtime. Back in the days of profit sharing checks, my next door neighbor got a profit sharing check equal to my full annual salary because it was based on how many hours they worked. He worked 12 hour days/7days a week. He didn't have much of a life though. I also know guys who are seriously messed up physically because of the physical intensity of line work. A lot of them can't do it when they get older and then they end up on disability younger than they should. Not to mention, it is mind numbing work. I think I'd go crazy doing that kind of work.

Rates of pay for various types of work, as a reflection of our social priorities, are really screwed up. I've always noted that we pay day care workers and nurses aides some of the lowest rates but they are the ones caring for our most precious gifts.. our children and our parents. It makes no sense to me.

My friends dad was tool and die for Chrysler and made $90 an hour on Sundays..every Sunday.

Exactly... probably for 12 hours too. Triple time on Sunday. That's the extreme stuff.

They would just eat pizza and watch football since no supervisors were there too. LOL. That was the "good ole days" of when the big 3 didn't mind losing a billion dollars a year. I'm sure that stuff doesn't happen anymore in todays auto industry.

Now they get tanked on lunch breaks and say "but the execs do it".

They do have quotas to meet on Sundays now, from what I hear. But if they manage to reach their quotas and have extra time left...

I don't think that is tolerated now like it was before. And the execs can't get away with it anymore either.

*remembers the day when you could drink and smoke in your office*

They should "clock out" and go home but at the end of the day it's not my money that's being spent.

Back to the original topic, I hope all goes well for the teachers but I'd watch out for Rahm " Never let a crises go to waste" Emanual. He seems like a sneaky one.

It's looking like there will be no 11th hour deal, so the strike is on. My friends who teach in Chicago are all crushed; nobody wants this a week into the school year.