Class Struggle Education Workers/UFT Leaflet on Chicago Teachers Strike

Their Fight Is Our Fight, Crucial for Entire Union Movement

Mobilize the Power of NYC Labor in Solidarity with the Chicago Teachers Strike

By Class Struggle Education Workers/UFT

September 2012 -- The Chicago Teachers Union is taking a crucial stand against the so-called “ed reformers” who want to destroy public education and teachers unions. The strike by 25,000 Chicago teachers has galvanized education unionists who have been under assault across the country – we know they are fighting for all of us. UFT president Michael Mulgrew rightly told the AFT convention: “You come after one of us, you deal with all of us.” Let’s make it real.

The stakes are high. The CTU is up against the Big Three triumvirate of privatizers and union-busters: President Barack Obama, who supported the mass firings of teachers in Central Falls, Rhode Island, and whose Race to the Top seeks to charterize public education;  Education Secretary Arne Duncan, former schools chief in Chicago; and Rahm Emanuel, the former White House chief of staff whose first act as Mayor of Chicago was to declare war on the teachers union. It was in Chicago that they concocted their program; it is in Chicago where the line has now been drawn in the sand.

Emanuel angered teachers last year when he appointed Jean-Claude Brizard as Chicago Public Schools chief. Brizard is a graduate of the Eli Broad Foundation’s Superintendents Academy – the notorious anti-teacher outfit that pushes merit pay, corporate management and charter-schools – key points in the Obama education plan. Brizard used to work for Bloomberg as a superintendent in the NYC DOE and then went on to become head of the Rochester NY public schools.  He was available for the Chicago job after the teachers union in Rochester took a 94.6 percent vote of no confidence in him.

Chicago teachers are striking over the crucial issues in public education today: new teacher evals which will victimize teachers for student performance based on insane standardized tests; racist school closings, with charters being opened in their place, then the firing of teachers whose classrooms are closed down; pay based on “merit,” and an end to seniority  rights; so-called “data- driven education” (read doctored stats), and an agenda that seeks the privatization of education through charter schools and computer programs to “teach” classes online.

The UFT has already capitulated on several of these key questions: allowing and supporting (!) teacher evals based on test scores; more than a thousand teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve following the sellout of seniority transfers, and the institution of the discriminatory Open Market.

Wear red on Wednesday?  Send checks to the CTU?  We need to do a whole lot more. We need to put the full power of our education unions into the fight.  We have more than 80,000 teachers in NYC teaching one million kids. We need everyone brought out to a massive demonstration of the UFT as well as the CUNY union, the Professional Staff Congress, and bringing in other public employee unions such as the TWU.

And we need to draw the lesson: Break labor’s ties to the capitalist Democratic Party, which – as all can see in Chicago today – is leading the assault on the teachers and students of this country.

Mobilize the numbers and the power of labor in real solidarity with Chicago teachers!

From New York to Chicago to L.A.: defeat the privatizers and union-busters!

Unchain labor’s muscle, smash the Taylor Law!

Break with the Democrats – for a class struggle workers party!

Victory to the CTU!

Chicago Charter Schools are Strike-Breaking

The following comment is adapted from an email posting by a supporter of class-struggle unionism:

Strikes are clarifying events. Lines are drawn and consequences shown. Although it is getting almost no media attention including on the CTU website, Chicago charter schools are strike-breaking.

The Chicago Tribune’s posting of 9/9 headlined: “Charter schools in session despite strike.” They quoted a CEO of the United Neighborhood Organization charter network who was positively gleeful that the prospect of a strike could help the charter school movement: “I think parents are going to be frustrated when they see 50,000 kids having education, going to school without interruption and their kids are not.” This potential has always been part of the teacher-bashing and union-busting mission of the charter school movement. Not only is the charter “reform” movement the cutting edge of privatization while draining precious resources from public education, with its mantra of “children first,” it perpetrates the vicious lie that unionized teachers are not on the side of the students we teach.

The Chicago strike demonstrates clearly that when teachers stand up for their rights and working conditions, we are also standing up for the learning conditions of our students. If charter school teachers actually care about Chicago’s school children, they ought to walk out in solidarity with the CTU. If there are any teachers still confused about the role and purpose of the charter schools, this strike should crystallize understanding.