'They can no longer bulldoze us!' CTU vice president Jesse Sharkey's speech to the July 25 rally at the Chicago Board of Education
Labor Beat has now posted the complete video of the important speech by Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey to the rally outside Chicago Public Schools headquarters on July 24, 2012. The URL for the video, which is now available on You Tube, is: http://youtu.be/UEx1DsJVNLQ
Jesse Sharkey speaks to CTU members and supporters on July 25 at 125 S. Clark St. Substance photo by Susan Zupan.The rally of approximately five hundred CTU union members and community supporters took place on the street right before the July 25, 2012 Chicago Public Schools Board meeting. The big crowd breathed in the refreshing atmosphere of a new, successful offensive by the union that has opened up significant cracks in the Board's positions. 'We have met their attack arm-in-arm with our partners in the community," Sharkey told the crowd.
This counter-attack, Sharkey noted, "is what has caused the political powers that be and the Board [CPS] to climb out of their bulldozer…and they can no longer bulldoze us. Now they want to talk to us."
But with these successes of the CTU and community, he added, "we should be under no illusions that the tiger has changed its stripes."
