LABOR BEAT VIDEO... 'School cuts? No thanks! Take the money from the banks!'... New video shows June 22 'furlough day' rally at City Hall...
School Cuts. No Thanks. Take the Money from the Banks is a newly released Labor Beat video showing the large protests at Chicago's City Hall and elsewhere held on June 22, 2016, a "furlough day" for CPS workers. The video is available at the following URL: On YouTube at: https://youtu.be/8G32DZhkc-8
Part of the crowd inside Chicago's City Hall on June 22, 2016. Labor Beat photo.On June 22, 2016 the Chicago Teachers Union headed up a series of demonstrations in the Loop that focused on concrete revenue solutions for the public schools funding crisis and the racism it's packaged with. These actions converged on City Hall, occupying all the floors of the building in a powerful show of a potentially independent political force in search of a permanent structure.
The protests identified three sources for funding, sources repeatedly ignored by Mayor Rahm Emanuel: to legally challenge millions of dollars sucked up by fishy toxic swap loans between Chicago Public Schools and banks; to demand that people like Ken Griffin, Illinois' richest billionaire, pay fair, progressive taxes; to stop using TIF (Tax Increment Financing) funds to finance the Mayor's property development pals and redirect those funds to public education. (The stopgap 6-month funding agreement worked out in the State's legislature later in the month was not a real budget, and created no new sources of revenue.)
This day of protests dramatized the ongoing transition in Chicago from a defensive to an offensive posture against City and State government policies.
CTU Organizer Matt Luskin put it this way: "These cuts have to be taken off the table as an unacceptable solution. We have a right to public education. The only question should be how are we going to fund it, not how are we going to survive under the poverty that they say we must just deal with."
Civilian Police Accountability Council activist William Calloway underlined the historic change in posture within the African-American community: "We're not asking for nothing, we demand everything, we want justice for Laquan McDonald, we want justice for everybody in Chicago that has been afflicted by policemen's misconduct. Period."
Members of the Cook County College Teachers Union (CCCTU) protested outside the headquarters of Citadel, owned by the richest man in Illinois, Ken Griffin. Labor Beat photo.Ryne Poelker, North Side Action for Justice, defined this transition to the offensive more politically: "For the past 30 years we've had a Democratic Party here in Chicago that has given arguments similar to that of the Republican Party of trickle-down economics." Pointing to the TIF-funded high-rise of River Point Plaza, Poelker continued "they say things like if we give money to this development somehow that wealth will trickle down to our schools and our teachers. But what have we seen the past 30 years? What is the real, historical fact? The fact of the matter is inequality has worsened, we have less funding, not more funding for the schools, less teachers, we have larger classrooms and we have a lower standard of living for the everyday people who live in our neighborhoods. So the theory does not match the reality." Hearing the word "theory" uttered on the street is an encouraging sign for the movement.
The video's length: 15:05.
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