Rahm began gloating to The New York Times as soon as the sellout CTU contract was approved by the negotiators and the so-called 'Big Bargaining Team'...
One of the thousands of emails from Mayor Rahm Emanuel's private account reveals that Rahm was gloating to The New York Times two days after the CTU officers and the so-called "Big Bargaining Team" had halted a threatened strike and pushed through the "Tentative Agreement" that has sold out the union's members until July 2019.Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel didn't even wait until the Chicago Teachers Union's House of Delegates was railroaded through an unprecedented quickie vote on the "Tentative Agreement" (the new contract) before he began using his private email account to brag about how he had tamed the once mighty Chicago Teachers Union. In an email to David Brooks two days after the "BBT" and the negotiating team pushed through the "TA" hours before a strike was to begin, Rahm took a bow for the national news about his labor acumen. David Brooks in a regular Op Ed contributor to The New York Times and has appeared on numerous TV shows offering his opinions about current events.
The release of thousands of private emails by Emanuel came after he had spent a long time fighting in court against the release. Rahm claimed that he was entitled to privacy. The emails show that he devoted an large amount of time to national news writers and pundits, always seeking to burnish his image. Prior to becoming Mayor of Chicago in 2011, Emanuel served on the White House staff during the 1990s (the Clinton administration) and as Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama. The emails generally show that Emanuel was trying to keep his national profile high, apparently hoping to be slated for Vice President when Hillary Clinton was nominated for President (in Emanuel's portion of the Democratic Party, a foregone conclusion). The release of the video showing the police shooting of Laquan McDonald made Emaneul a pariah for national Democrats, but it didn't stop him from continuing to promote himself and his work in Chicago.
Emanuel had every reason to tout the contract he had won with Karen Lewis and the Chicago Teachers Union. As the union's rank and file members were learning at the Winter Holidays approached in December 2016, the terms of the contract left most members with low or no pay increases, and added burdens that hadn't been on them before. Despite the fact that the CORE floor strategy prevented a detailed discussion at the House of Delegates meeting that "recommended" the contract (a CORE leader moved to close debate after less than 20 minutes discussion; with no real detail having been provided to the delegates), a third of the union's voting members rejected the deal. But it received the necessary majority in the membership referendum to lock the members into it until June 30, 2019.
Unpleasant surprises began ironically at Christmas, when members learned that many of them would not be getting any raise for the first two years of the agreement, and barely a raise for the final two years. After the union's officers were corrected in one of their many obfuscations (they were calling the meager raises a "COLA", which stand for "Cost of Living" -- different from a pay raise), the bad news kept coming in December 2016. The final blow for many came on December 23, when the "retroactive" pay for those in Lanes and Steps came. Members who had ignored the facts of the contract (zero percent pay raises for the first two years) when they voted were reportedly deluging the union's offices with calls demanding to know why this had happened.
The "why" in a sellout such as the 2016 "Tentative Agreement" often takes years to become public. But thanks to the Chicago Tribune's Freedom of Information lawsuit, the 27,000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union know at Christmas that one person in Chicago was very happy about the CTU leadership's surrender -- Rahm Emanuel.
Comments:
By: Therese Boyle
Rahm's 'best contract ever'
The terms of this contract financially harm members. Personally, this contract will harm me for decades. This contract uses a lower base salary in 2015-2016 (to account for the 3 furlough and 1 day of action salary losses). My raise in 2017-2018 will be a percentage of my lower 2015-2016 salary. I made more in 2014-2015! This also impacts the calculation of my pensionable income for retirement. I calculate I will lose about $35,000 over 30 years of retirement. This did not need to happen. Why did we rush to agreement? Why didn't we ask for our actuary to review the terms and advise us on how this would impact members? Rahm's best contract ever is not the best contract ever for CTU members.
By: Edward F Hershey
Changes in Steps in 2012 contract
One point that I had to go over with members last week, after they saw their retro checks, was that the early Steps went down with the 2012 contract, in favor of increases to later steps. We were told this was to encourage mid-career people (between steps 5 and 10) to stay in the system. That may be, but it also means a concession on total career pay, as those decreases in the early steps compound over time -- with the percentage pay increases.
This issue perhaps wasn't clear to all of us at the time, but four years on, we see that it was, in fact, a concession.