New Chicago mayor faces teachers strike
CHICAGO — Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot swept into office this spring declaring it “a new day” for the nation’s third-largest city. She pledged to change the way City Hall operated under Rahm Emanuel and for decades before him, invest in poor neighborhoods, improve schools and address the city’s deeply troubled finances.
But with teachers in Chicago Public Schools hitting the picket lines this week, Lightfoot finds herself facing many of the same challenges as her predecessor, the former White House chief of staff whose years of conflict with the Chicago Teachers Union included a sevenday strike in 2012.
About 25,000 teachers and staff were on strike for the second day Friday, after months of negotiations ended without a new contract between the union and CPS. The walkout has canceled classes for more than 300,000 students as the two sides wrangle over class sizes, pay and staffing for nurses and school social workers. Union officials said progress was being made at the bargaining table, but the strike could continue into next week.
It is the biggest test yet for Lightfoot, who had never been elected to public office before she defeated more than a dozen candidates and won an April runoff in a landslide over a longtime political insider. It’s also her opportunity to show how she is different from or better than Emanuel, whose City Hall she criticized heavily during the campaign.
But to get there, she may have to choose her own path: Does she ultimately acquiesce to teachers, whose demands she estimates may cost up to $2.5 billion per year? Or will she hold the line financially and risk alienating an influential force in Chicago politics?
Along with the strike, Lightfoot is dealing with other longstanding city problems, including how to close a budget shortfall of nearly $1 billion and address $30 billion in public-pension debt.
“If she cannot land a deal with teachers for public schools in Chicago, then you have to question her ability to get work done in this city,” said CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates.
Lightfoot rejects the suggestion that a prolonged strike might hurt her politically, saying “I don’t look at it that way.”
“This isn’t about politics for me,” the former federal prosecutor said.