STRIKE DOUBTS

Many union members conflicted over 1-day walkout as CPS says teachers who don’t show won’t be paid or punished

Teachers who don’t report to work Friday during a “wildcat strike” will not be disciplined beyond losing the day’s pay, a top Chicago Public Schools official said Thursday.

But those who do punch in could face repercussions from their union, which is leading an unprecedented one-day strike seeking more state funding. They could also face scorn from their colleagues.

Many teachers have reported feeling conflicted about the strike, saying its aims are too amorphous or its tactics premature.

“I also understand that this is a hard decision for many of our teachers, and I have a message to those teachers as well,” Chief Education Officer Janice Jackson said Thursday.

“If teachers are not able to come to work we will not seek mass discipline against the rank-and-file teachers,” she said, such as a writeup or a warning resolution.

But she repeated the district’s message that a paycheck awaits anyone who reports to work at their own school or any one of the 107 schools staying open to care for children during the strike CPS regards as illegal.

The Chicago Teachers Union is leading a one-day strike that union officials say is necessary to secure more funding from the state for schools.

The union also contends the action is legal, based on a CPS unfair labor practice of canceling raises that the two sides continue to bargain about in ongoing contract negotiations.

However, its 27,000 members aren’t marching in their usual lockstep.

Though the measure to authorize the strike passed with more than two-thirds of the union’s delegates, the 486-124 vote was hardly unanimous for the powerful union.

Veteran teacher assistant Jose- phine Fernandez-Rivera will not cross any picket lines and go to work on Friday at Peck Elementary School.

But neither will she don red, pick up signs and join union colleagues at pickets or the downtown rally.

“I’m just saying I don’t agree with this action. I felt like there was no forethought with this whole plan,” said Fernandez-Rivera, a 22year member of the CTU. She told the Sun-Times that union members voted on April 1 as a “day of action” that wasn’t yet a strike.

“I just feel that a lot of teachers and career service were taken off guard on this,” she said. “We didn’t fully understand what was happening, what would happen.”

She raised her concerns with her school’s delegate and posted on the CTU’s Facebook page, “I am with you. If we are going to a regular strike, I will go.” She said her questions were met with pushback from colleagues but doesn’t believe she’ll be the only Peck staffer skipping the protests.

CPS payroll records will track who reports to work Friday. But it’s hard to know how many teachers and other members of the CTU will just stay home. School delegates will ask picketers to put their names on sign-in sheets.

That’s why at least one Southside High School teacher will turn up outside his school and picket a few hours, as his school’s union delegate and captains have instructed individual staffers. But then he’s heading home too, along with several teacher friends.

“I just think it sends a bad message across the board for the public,” he said of the strike. “We’re trying to squeeze rocks to get blood, and it’s not there. I think we have to take a more realistic look at it and be responsible. Hey, there’s other ways to do this.”

He added, “I don’t think the enthusiasm is there.”

The teacher also said the purpose of the strike was amorphous.

“If you polled the teachers that are out on strike tomorrow, I’d be curious if they’d all be consistent as far as what’s the purpose and the cause,” he said. “It’s supposed to be unfair labor practices, but I would guess none would say that.”

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said this week he shares the school funding frustrations with the CTU.

But he once again appealed to teachers not to “take it out on” students who belong in the classroom and can’t afford to miss a minute of instruction, let alone an entire day.

“I understand and appreciate that teachers have a challenge with Springfield. Get in line. There’s a lot of people who have a challenge with what’s happening in Springfield. But do not take it out on our students,” the mayor said.