Labor Notes
September 29, 2015
As the new school year approached, the Chicago teachers bargaining team thought they were going to sign off on a one-year contract extension they could live with. They wanted to avoid a protracted battle with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his appointed school board this fall, allowing the union time to dedicate to internal organizing after a packed spring election season spent trying to oust the mayor from office.
But on August 7, on his first day at negotiations, Emanuel’s newly appointed schools chief (the fifth in five years) pulled the plug on any settlement. The union had offered to accept a pay freeze in exchange for fixes to the teacher evaluation system, which members complain is overly punitive. Instead, CEO Forrest Claypool is demanding that teachers pay more for their pensions, essentially a 7 percent pay cut.