As Chicago Public Schools and the teachers union sit down to negotiate an expiring contract, a new mayor, new union leadership and new state legislation make it tougher for teachers to strike.
With three wild cards in play, the negotiations could be rocky.
“The ability to use the threat of a strike as a negotiating leverage has changed considerably,” said Robin Steans, executive director of Advance Illinois, an education advocacy group. “You’ve got new and different leadership at the (Chicago Teachers Union), a mayor with a very different approach to the issue and different rules to the game with the new legislation. How that will all play out is extremely difficult to predict.”
Chicago teachers haven’t gone on strike since 1987, but that was largely because former Mayor Richard Daley was willing to give teachers substantial raises to avoid walkouts.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is no Daley. And CPS is facing a growing budget shortfall.
In fact, a $712 million budget deficit led the Board of Education to discard the planned across-the-board 4 percent raises for teachers as its first official act over the summer.
New legislation supported by the mayor and signed by the governor in June also makes it harder for the union to call a strike once an impasse has been reached. A strike now requires four to six months of steps before union members can resort to that option, and it requires a higher threshold vote of 75 percent of union members.
Still, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis was not shy about playing the strike card over the summer as the union negotiated the lost raises.
“If there’s something that affects the lives of teachers which is so important that we can’t accept it, then I don’t think a 75 percent vote threshold is going to be an issue,” said union Vice President Jesse Sharkey. “If the board really wants to make sure a strike is not an issue, they should avoid trying to impose conditions that people working in schools find objectionable.”
So far, both sides have been hammering out the terms of engagement. The union says it will submit its formal demands for the four-year contract by Feb. 1.
Along with compensation and pension, thorny issues this year involve teacher demands to be paid more for working a lengthened school day next school year. There’s also a more rigorous evaluation system that will be launched, a process that many teachers fear could be a precursor to merit pay.
But today’s economic climate may lead teachers to think twice about a strike.
“This is a very different teaching climate than what it used to be,” said Barbara Radner, director of DePaul University’s Center for Urban Education. “Teachers are worried about whether their schools will be closed, whether they’ll lose their job. Or, they’re worried about the charter down the street, which is recruiting their kids, and their positions could be gone soon.”
