Chicago has a rich history of bare-knuckle labor leaders who staked their ground, fought for their members and sought reasonable compromise with their employers. Former Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis was one of them. A family spokeswoman Monday morning confirmed the death of the late union president. She was 67.
Lewis was a colorful, charismatic leader who was so popular among the CTU rank and file, she didn’t draw an opponent for a third term in 2016, which ended up being her last. She was diagnosed in 2014 with a malignant brain tumor and gradually phased out of her public role. We wrote an editorial at the time of her diagnosis wishing her well and reminding her: “You’ve made yourself essential to the debate in this metropolis — to almost any debate, that is, about Chicago and its children, its schools, its finances, its direction. You’re not yet a week in the hands of a medical team and already we miss you.”
A former chemistry teacher, Lewis was known for her caustic wit and had flirted early in life with becoming a stand-up comedian. If she had followed that career path, we imagine her inspiration would have been insult specialist Don Rickles. She famously told reporters that former Mayor Rahm Emanuel had flung a four-letter profanity at her — “F— you, Lewis” — at one of their first meetings on lengthening the school day.
She pegged the mayor as “a liar and a bully.” When Emanuel hired Jean-Claude Brizard to lead the district in 2011, Lewis responded: “We get it. I’m going to buy some boxing gloves now. But did I think Rahm Emanuel was going to put some reasonable people in place? Of course not.”
In 2012, Lewis earned a national reputation as a take-no-guff leader when she led her members on the first teachers strike in 25 years. At a Loop rally days before the strike, Lewis declared: “The only way to beat a bully is to stand up to a bully!”
And: “This fight is not about Karen Lewis. Let’s be clear: This fight is for the very soul of public education, not only in Chicago but everywhere.”
Unlike current CTU leadership, Lewis was careful and cautious about striking. She understood the harm of keeping kids out of school and worked quickly toward a resolution with City Hall. CTU in 2016 threatened another strike, but she worked with CPS to avert it.
She ran afoul of the more radical faction that now runs the CTU when she signed off on education reforms in 2011 that tightened the thresholds for striking and changed traditional teacher tenure rules. She was roundly criticized, and then later backtracked, for working with education reformers in Springfield. But it was the right thing to do.
Lewis did not try to leverage social issues — affordable housing, defunding police, supporting socialist politics — into contract talks. She prioritized pay and benefits and a fair work day for her members.
Over the years, she peppered Emanuel and CPS brass with jab after jab but somehow did it good-naturedly.
Yes, we disagreed loudly and often with Lewis on education issues. There was — and is — plenty to criticize about the district’s performance and union efforts to block needed change. But she still maintained a level of professionalism and charm, even to her adversaries, and visited us regularly at the Tribune Editorial Board to make her case despite our differences.
Lewis believed what we believe: Chicago Public Schools can do better. She was a product of them.
If not for a diagnosis of a malignant brain tumor in late 2014, we might today be writing about former Mayor Karen Lewis. A Tribune poll in August 2014 had her leading Emanuel by a narrow margin as the 2015 city elections approached. Oh, what a race Lewis vs. Emanuel would have been. But it was not to be.
This town has seen its share of political hacks and heirs to famous names gliding into office on generations of familial clout. That wasn’t Karen Lewis.
She was a blunt force of nature who focused on one of city’s most important responsibilities — educating its children. That’s how we — and many other Chicagoans — will remember her.
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