Chicago teachers, staffers on strike
Higher pay, more resources at issue
CHICAGO — Teachers and school staffers went on strike Thursday in the nation’s third-largest school district in a fight for higher pay and more school resources, the latest walkout amid a national resurgence of teacher activism.
Thousands of educators took to the streets, picketing outside empty city schools and marching from Chicago Public Schools headquarters to city hall in the Loop, chanting in cadence with the beating of drums. Although salary increases are part of their demands, teachers emphasized that they were also striking to compel the district to bolster staffing so schools would no longer have to share nurses, and to make sure campuses have enough counselors and socials workers.
Teachers throughout the nation are battling for classroom resources, affordable housing and restrictions on charter schools. Over the past two years, educators in unlikely places have found their voices, walking out in 2018 in red states such as West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona, buoyed by broad-based public support.
Chicago teachers, represented by a powerful union in a Democratic city, last went on strike in 2012. Thursday’s strike idled some 25,000 teachers and 300,000 students.
“You see a common thread from West Virginia to Los Angeles to Chicago,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers union. “It’s about making the sacrifice to help create welcoming and safe environments for our kids and not taking ‘no’ for an answer.”
The Chicago Teachers Union and Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who faces her first major test as the city’s leader, reached a contract impasse, forcing Lightfoot to cancel classes Thursday. Teachers were joined on the picket lines by special education assistants, bus aides, school security guards and other staff members represented by Service Employees International Union Local 73, whose contract negotiations with the city also stalled.
Lightfoot has said the city cannot afford the teachers’ demands, which include a restorative justice coordinator for every school. She told reporters Thursday morning that schools would remain closed until teachers agreed to come back to the classroom.
Leslie Russell, an English teacher at Walter Payton College Preparatory High School who joined the massive rally, said she sees stark disparities between city schools and campuses in more affluent suburbs. Her school has a nurse only one day a week.
“Teachers are not in it for the money,” Russell said. “We are the catalyst for great things kids can do when in optimized conditions.”
On Thursday morning, leaders from the Chicago Teachers Union continued negotiations with city officials at Malcolm X College on the Near West Side. Union president Jesse Sharkey said it was unlikely the two sides would strike a deal imminently.