Chicago Teachers Union votes to back strike

Nearly every one of the thousands of Chicago teachers who cast ballots last week to determine whether they could go on strike voted to do so, blowing past a 75 percent approval mandated by the state.

The Chicago Teachers Union announced Monday that 96.5 percent of those casting ballots last week voted to back the strike. With nearly 92 percent of members voting, that means about 88 percent of all members support a strike should ongoing contract negotiations fail, according to CTU vice president Jesse Sharkey, who described the results as “overwhelming.”

That’s a shade lower than in 2012 when 89.7 percent of all CTU members voted to strike before walking out for seven school days.

“Rahm Emanuel really does not need a teachers strike,” Sharkey said at a news conference to announce the results. “And what we’re telling him is if he doesn’t listen to us, that’s what he’ll get.”

But at this point in the proceedings, the 27,000 CTU members won’t likely walk off the job any sooner than May. That’s because state law requires one more time-consuming step for teachers and other school workers before they can legally strike, and getting to that step awaits a hearing on Jan. 21, 2016.

Sharkey chalked up the strong returns to continued cuts to public schools — and threats of even more from the cash-strapped Chicago Public Schools in February. Short $480 million in its current operating budget, CPS is looking to Springfield to fill that gap, or has said it’ll make up the difference with thousands of layoffs plus borrowing.

“I’m happy to join with the mayor and the CEO for the schools to go to Springfield to advocate for real revenue,” Sharkey said. “What they’re advocating for currently isn’t real revenue. It’s basically borrowing against the pension fund with no ability of paying it back.”

He said members don’t want to walk picket lines but will if they have to.

“We’re not going to take it lying down that there are just these big cuts, and we’re not going to treat it like a fait accompli that the only way they can do this is cutting,” Sharkey said. “Our members will not go to work if we have to, be in the streets of the city of Chicago to demand justice for our schools.”

State law requires that at least 75 percent of Chicago Teachers Union members approve a strike during a vote they took over three days last week. The group of 27,000 has now positioned itself to legally walk off the job, but only after both sides agree to consult a fact-finder in a process that takes about 105 days.

CTU has already asked to go to that step, saying they’ve been in negotiations since November 2014 and using a mediator for more than three months. Last month, the union filed a grievance with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board asking to start fact-finding promptly. A hearing has been set for Jan. 21.

CPS has wanted to give the mediator more time to work on issues during good faith negotiations, saying the fact-finding should begin in February. That would push the strike to May at the earliest.

“We have the highest respect for our teachers’ work and while we understand their frustrations, a strike that threatens to set back our students’ progress is simply not the answer to our challenges,” CPS CEO Forrest Claypool said in a statement.

“As we’ve said from the beginning, revenue must be part of the solution — especially in a state that ranks last in the country for its share of education funding. Nowhere is this underfunding more stark than at CPS, where our students receive only 15 percent of the state’s education funding, despite making up 20 percent of the state’s enrollment.”

CPS also said the union’s demands from the district in a financial crisis totaled $1.5 billion, including more than $900 million in hiring of school librarians, nurses, social workers and more teachers to reduce class sizes.

Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th), Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s City Council floor leader and former longtime chairman of the City Council’s Education Committee, said the 88 percent strike vote surprises no one at City Hall.

“It’s the only mechanism they have to move the ball forward. You could make it a 95 percent bar and they’d meet it,” O’Connor said.

Although the saber-rattling is going on in Chicago, O’Connor said the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to “keep the schools open and continue to make payroll” lies in Springfield. Instead of being at each other’s throats, the union and the mayor should be “singing in harmony,” he said.

“That should be the story. It shouldn’t be that they voted to take a strike. That’s the first step that they have to take. Everybody understands that,” O’Connor said.

“If the teachers union thinks taking this vote and sitting up here in Chicago is going to be enough, I don’t think that’s the case,” he said. “They need to join hands with the Board of Ed and the administration and go down and try and convince the Legislature and the governor that this is the appropriate way to keep the schools open.”

Emanuel has offered to raise property taxes by an additional $170 million for the schools, but only if teachers accept the equivalent of a 7 percent pay cut and the state reimburses CPS for “normal” pension costs.

That would require the City Council to cast a second vote — in addition to the $588 million property tax increase for police and fire pensions and school construction approved in late October — this time to reinstate the old, dedicated property tax levy for teacher pensions.

On Monday, O’Connor was asked whether he is prepared to walk that political plank again.

“We’re not prepared to do anything until we see what money they’re prepared to put into the pot,” O’Connor said.

“If the only thing that comes out of Springfield is they’re willing to allow us to tax our way out of this problem, I don’t think that’s a solution.”