Feb. 02--Chicago Teachers Union bargaining team rejects city's contract offer.
I dunno. The state, the city and the Chicago Public Schools are in a world of financial hurt, CPS is evidently having a hell of time borrowing money even at near usurious rates, and the teachers are confident they can get a better deal.
Chicago Public Schools had offered teachers a four-year deal that would bar economic layoffs, put a cap on privately run charter schools and provide some moderate pay increases, sources said last week. In exchange, union members would have had to make concessions that included paying more toward their pensions and health care expenses. The district said Monday that its proposal also included a commitment to restore a city property tax levy solely for teacher pensions...
Maybe they can. Maybe they should. But Chicagoans, who sided with the teachers when they last went out on strike, may have a different view this time, especially since they'll be absorbing a record property tax increase largely to pay for education.
CTU leaders had deemed the city's proposal a "serious offer" in agreeing last week to take it to its bargaining team for a vote.
Maybe the Tribune poll showing a badly weakened Mayor Rahm Emanuel has emboldened the teachers to hold out for a better deal. But maybe this surprising intransigence won't play -- or pay -- as well as they think it will.
A pro-CTU commenter posting under our news story argued:
The Union rejected the offer for several reasons.
One, the amount that the teachers would pay for the pension pick-up was far below the pay raise offered by CPS.
Two, the number of taxpayer-funded mooching for-profit charter schools would not be reduced.
Three, the minuscule pay-raise was far below the 11 per cent that the police received in their latest contract.
Four, the evaluations of teachers would not be based on what CTU wants, which is only those students with 96% or more attendance, whose parents make them do their homework, and who do not change schools during the school year.
Five, the revenue problem: The CTU believes that the board cannot cut its way to solvency. The CTU sees that $250 million per year of real estate taxes is being siphoned into the mayor's slushy TIF accounts. The CTU believes that this money should go to the schools.
Six, the CTU believes that more revenue could be raised by re-instituting a line on the real estate tax bill that paid money directly into the pension plan...just like before 1996. Thus, less borrowing at usurious rates.
Seven, the CTU would like an elected School Board instead of a brain-dead board appointed by an incompetent mayor. Ninety percent of the voters want an elected school board, and every other school district in the state has an elected school board
I dunno.
In better times, these arguments would feel stronger. But these days ...
What I do know, or least strongly suspect, is that Gov. Bruce Rauner is doing a happy Snoopy dance in the living room of whichever of his houses he is currently occupying. Nothing boosts the image of an anti-union agenda more than a public sector union rejecting an ostensibly reasonable offer in undeniably tough times.
