Chicago Teachers Union President calls for protest at June 22, 2011, meeting of the Chicago Board of Education
[Editor's Note: The following is the message sent by Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis to the union's 28,000 members and their supporters following the vote of the Chicago Board of Education to cancel the four percent (4%) pay raise for Chicago teachers and other unionized workers at the Chicago Public Schools. Teachers are also responding to a letter to them from newly installed Board President David Vitale, and Substance will publish all of those here and in print provided that the writer signs his or her name and provides permission. Teachers and others who wish to let the CTU know that they will be protesting at the Board of Education on June 22, 2011 can contact the CTU at the union website — www.ctunet.com — or by going directly to the sign up for the event. The URL for the sign up is following for those who can't access a hotlink: http://action.aft.org/c/468/p/salsa/event/common/public/?event_KEY=3023].
Chicago Teachers Union President spoke at the beginning of the Chicago Board of Education's June 15, 2011 special meeting. She told the Board that she hoped the union and the Board could begin to work together with a clean slate now that Mayor Rahm Emanuel was in charge. Within two hours after Lewis spoke, the Board voted, based on misleading or fraudulent Power Point budget information, to refuse to pay the teachers and other union members the four percent pay raise that is scheduled to begin July 1, 2011. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Dear CTU member (name in original):
Yesterday, thousands of us refused to pay for corporate greed. Keep the movement going next Wednesday, June 22 at 9:00am at CPS Headquarters, 125 S. Clark. Click to RSVP! [Link in the original].
We know that as teachers and paraprofessionals, we are in our schools every day—working 50 and 60 hour weeks, coming in early and staying late—all to ensure the best possible future for our students. We’ve kept our promise to them. But today the newly appointed Chicago Board of Education voted to break its promise to us and not fund our 4% raises for the next and final year of our contract.
We plan to FIGHT the refusal to honor commitments to teachers and school professionals who help educate our children. We are appalled that, in contrast, the school board has no problem continuing to spend millions of dollars in toxic swaps to bankers and go along with the city’s TIF program that takes $250 million from schools every year and gives it directly to developers.
While salaries in Chicago and Chicagoland are similar for entry-level teachers, average salaries for master teachers with more than 20 years experience in the suburbs are almost $20,000 higher than for similar Chicago teachers. Our students deserve a quality teacher in every classroom, and by choosing to break its promise rather than ask the banks and developers to pay its fair share, CPS is putting education at risk. We hope you will help us deliver this message to the Board at their meeting next week.
We’ve expressed a desire to work with CPS on many issues. In return, CPS has not demonstrated any effort to collaborate on budget matters prior to this decision. Until now, neither CPS representatives nor the Mayor’s office have approached the CTU to discuss the situation.
To make matters worse, the budget itself is opaque and misguided. While CPS continues on the path of financial malfeasance - spending millions on debt service, high interest loans, overpaid vendors, over-testing our children, and inequitably distributing facilities monies - our students are expected to bear the burden.
How does a billionaire view the Chicago Teachers Union? Billionaire heiress and mogul Penny Pritzker (above) could barely conceal her dislike for the Chicago Teachers Union during the presentation to the Board by CTU President Karen Lewis at the Board's June 15, 2011 meeting. The photograph above was snapped by Substance while Lewis was speaking and attempting to ask the Board members to work cooperatively with the unions, especially the union teachers. Pritzker, who served as campaign finance chair for Barack Obama in 2008, is one of eleven members of the Pritzker family listed as Chicago billionaires by Forbes (March 2011). Her financial interests include the Hyatt Hotels (where she is a major shareholder and a director), Pritzker Realty, Artemis Real Estate Partners, and dozens of other Pritzker family interests, most of which are anti union. She is one of seven members of the Chicago Board of Education appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The special meeting of the Chicago Board of Education on June 15, 2011, voted to rescind the promised four percent raises for the 2011 - 2012 school year, despite union contracts. Pritzker and others went along with a fictitious Power Point presentation by CPS administrators purporting to show that CPS was facing what Board President David Vitale calls a huge "deficit" and a "financial crisis." But no one on the Board, despite their extensive financial knowledge (Penny Pritzker holds both a law degree and and MBA) challenged the outrageous numbers produced by CPS officials in their "deficit" claims. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.We have been sent a signal that Mayor Emanuel and his appointed Board of Education would rather go to war with us than address any of the systemic problems we face in ensuring a bright future for Chicago’s children.
You can make a huge difference, again!
Last month, our large-scale mobilization stopped special interests in Springfield from destroying our pensions. Yesterday, the CTU joined with thousands of Chicagoans who came together to demand that wealthy corporations pay their fair share and give back the money we gave them in the federal bailout. Their fair share is necessary in order to save our schools, create jobs with living wages and build affordable housing.
Now, more than ever we must come together as a union and fight this injustice. Please join all of our union brothers and sisters and parents from throughout the Chicago Public Schools to picket the Chicago Board of Education meeting next Wednesday, June 22 at 125 S. Clark St., Chicago, IL. We will gather at 9am to show that we will not tolerate this kind of behavior and disrespect. Click here [link in original] if you can be there.
Together, we can show the Board and the Mayor that ignoring the interests of students, parents, teachers and all the people who work with children every day will ultimately destroy the promise of public education. None of us can afford to let that happen.
In Solidarity,
Karen Lewis
By: Jean R Schwab
School Board
It seems ridiculous that a school board of millionaires can so easily wipe away a pay raise for people that spend all their lives helping children. Our society is making a habit of taking away benefits from people that help the most needy while giving the richest a break from any responsibilty. I suggest that everyone on the Board give one million to CPS in an effort to show that they are also willing to give up something for our children. When the Board says they really care about cildren, it's hard for people to take seriously when it is other people that they are asking to give up something. I know that this would be a symbolic gesture on their part but it would show that they have some concern.