'Fighting Jane' was 'Union-Busting Jane'. Just ask the firefighters she challenged in 1980 strike, and the union president she sent to jail...or the 8,000 teachers and other school workers who lost their jobs via her 'School Finance Authority'...
The John Kass headline in the November 15, 2014 Chicago Tribune says: 'Fighting Jane' battled the machine and won. But it wasn't the city's union busting part of the machine she fought. She had the firefighters union leader jailed... And the story of that confrontation, left out of most of the media accounts as the press deals with the Jane Byrne legacy, is still available. Anyone reading the stories about how Jane Byrne, a product of the so-called "machine", supposedly fought against the machine needs to have the whole record. In addition to sending the leader of the firefighters to jail, she actually had the city begin interviewing "replacements" (i.e., scabs) during the 1980 strike.
Three Democratic Party stalwarts (and "Machine Democrats") Jane Byrne, Richard M.Daley, and Harold Washington debated in January 1983 in a three-way primary debate that Washington "won." As a result of the status Washington (then a Congressman) achieved in that debate, he went on to win the Democratic primary in February 1983 and the general election in a racist confrontation with a little know Republican challenger in April 1983. Subsequent hagiographic historiography has tried to create a feminist "movement" behind the election of Jane Byrne in 1979 and some kind of Civil Rights Movement in the election of Harold Washington in 1983. Once in the mayor's office, both Byrne and Washington went after the unions. Byrne tried to recruit scabs during the 1980 firefighters strike and had the firefighters' union president sent to jail. Washington followed the dictates of Wall Street and the Chicago School Finance Authority and provoked the Chicago Teachers Union strikes of 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1987 -- so the CTU wound up striking for more days (the two longest strikes were 13 days in 1983 and 19 days in 1987) when Harold Washington was mayor than under any other mayor. Byrne caved in to the lies of Wall Street about the finances of Chicago Public Schools and helped engineer the establishment of the Chicago School Finance Authority in 1980. That resulted in the firing of 8,000 of the school system's 48,000 full-time workers by the last year of Byrne's term in October 1982. Below is from Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2 website... http://iaff2.org/index.cfm?section=28&pagenum=171. [The web site extensively covers the history of Local 2's strike.]
1980
"Mayor Byrne was mad as hell and told the media that only a small portion of the fire department walked out. But soon, more accurate figures emerged from the Union that 97% of all the department was out on strike. This figure was determined by the radio and phone systems put in place for the event. The Union regarding the strike, was more informed than the upper echelon of the fire department. The Fire Commissioner Richard Albrecht issued a directive for all fire department personnel to return to work. The order was broadcasted over the radio and television. But the directive failed and firefighters and paramedics across the city stayed out! �We have solidarity!� Muscare said with 97% of our Brothers and Sisters who walked out on strike....
"... Friday, February 22nd the news wasn�t good. The Mayor thought now that President Muscare was in jail he was out of her hair and this strike would end her way. The Union made a formal appeal to the entire labor community for assistance and support against the city�s Union-busting tactics..."
By: John Whitfield
Harold had less mayoral control of the Chgo. Bd. of Ed.
The Chicago Board of Education back when Harold was still mayor did the hiring and placement of teachers into a particular school, and that school had to accept the decision of the personnel office at the board. More mayoral control of the Board of Education came after the mysterious death of Harold, with the advent of phony school reform. Gradually, principals then were given the power to conduct the interviewing, and hiring. The former method seemed better, as you could get a transfer to another school, if it wasn't the right fit etc.