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Claypool's SCABSTITUTE 'TEACHERS'? CPS held August 27 'Recruitment Fair' not for real teachers (which are being privatized) but for $117 per day 'substitute teachers'...

George N. Schmidt - September 06, 2015

Chicago's first 'Substitute Teacher Recruitment Fair' was held on August 27, 2015 at the same place the Chicago Teachers Union's House of Delegates meets.One of the most expensive things that Chicago's public schools have done was pay scabs during a strike. When SEIU Local 73's leadership -- Christine Boardman and Matt Brandon at that time, with no democracy to stop them -- crafted a deal with Rahm Emanuel in August 2012, it meant that the bus aides, SECAs, and most security people in the city's public school system were ordered (by their union) to cross the Chicago Teachers Union's picket lines and "report to work."

But there were almost no teachers in the buildings by the second day of the Chicago Teachers Strike of 2012, and so principals, who are forced to "work" because they are "management" and lack union protection under Illinois law, had to supervise buildings that contained dozens (in a case or two) more than a hundred scabby adults, but almost no children. Despite the fact that the Board of Education offered to feed and entertain any kid who went to "school" during the strike, few returned after the confusing first day, and many joined their teachers on the union's picket lines.

That was three of four "Chief Executive Officers" ago, although the mayor is still the same guy, Rahm Emanuel (supposedly, a "Democrat"). And that was in September 2012.

Now it's September 2015, Forrest Claypool has already delivered a big FUCK YOU to the Chicago Teachers Union in the form of (a) withdrawing all the items agreed to from the collective bargaining table and (b) hiring, as a cost of a half million dollars Claypool claims with saintlike hypocrisy the city doesn't have, a second law firm to negotiate the union contract.

The American novelist (and prominent socialist) Jack London knew that working people needed unity and to fight back against scabs. In Chicago in September 2012, union leaders from the "Service Employees International Union" (Local 73; not other locals) cuddled up to Rahm Emanuel's administration, signed a "me too" contract a month before the Chicago Teachers Union led a strike, and profited from ordering their members to scab. In 2015, the Board of Education is not advertising to hire regular teachers (while firing or laying off and privatizing hundreds), but is hiring "substitute teachers." Does Chicago's ruling class have a master plan to "open" the schools with scabs this year?

It certainly looks that way, as the City and the new Board of Education leadership were advertising in August for a "Job Fair" for substitute teachers after firing, laying off, or privatizing another thousand or so real teachers!

The Chicago Board of Education tried and failed to "open" schools for children during every strike since 1971. The reason for the failure was that the kids stuck by their teachers, and even in the 21st Century Chicago remains a "union town" despite the fact that Chicago has a union-busting plutocrat millionaire scab herder for mayor. Since he appointed Forrest Claypool as CEO of CPS in July 2015, Rahm Emanuel has insulted the leaders and members of the Chicago Teachers Union at every opportunity. The next step in the failed ruling class game plan for 2015 seems to be to try and hire enough scab teachers to try a propaganda ploy and "open" schools using scabs.

The last time CPS even tried to keep all schools open during a CTU strike was in 1980. After that, the Board of Education consolidated its scab centers, as union members called them, as a small percentage of the schools. In 2012, CPS tried on the first day of the Chicago Teachers Strike of 2012 to open all the schools, only to be met with massive picket lines at all the schools, and virtually no scabs except those order into "work" by their own union's leaders -- Boardman and Branson of SEIU 73.

Will the city's ruling class try to scab herd in 2015 (or early 2016)?

It looks like they are going to try.

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