Subject: [SocialistWorker.org] What the Chicago teachers accomplished
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http://socialistworker.org/2012/09/26/what-the-ctu-accomplished
Comment: Lee Sustar
======== WHAT THE CHICAGO TEACHERS ACCOMPLISHED ==============================
Lee Sustar looks at the significance of the Chicago teachers' strike victory.
September 26, 2012
IT'S TIME to take stock of the significance of the Chicago teachers' strike
that beat back corporate education reform--not just for teachers and other
public-sector workers, but the wider labor movement.
But before considering its impact on future fights, let's take another moment
to savor a labor victory in one of the most important union struggles in many
years.
There was the unforgettable Day One, when tens of thousands of red-shirted
members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and supporters swarmed downtown,
shutting down traffic around the Board of Education headquarters and City
Hall in what a local radio news reporter aptly called "an older and more
polite version of Occupy Chicago."
In truth, it wasn't all that polite, either, if you happened to read the
handmade placards and hear the chants directed at Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who
began targeting Chicago teachers months before he took office.
Then Day Two--another day, another mass march. After picket duty at schools
in every neighborhood of the city in the morning, teachers again swept
downtown, this time turning stately Buckingham Fountain on the lakefront into
the site of an open-air union rally that conjured the spirit of famous
Chicago labor battles of the past.
The following day came the three big demonstrations at high schools on the
South and West Sides, in neighborhoods populated predominately by African
Americans and Latinos. The hot late-summer sun didn't deter teachers or
neighborhood residents who cheered them on.
And the excitement wasn't limited to the big protests. Anyone who walked the
picket lines at neighborhood schools experienced not just the impressive
solidarity among teachers, but the groundswell of support for the CTU among
parents and the wider community. Those wearing a red T-shirt from the CTU or
the Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign were routinely stopped and thanked
on the street, while getting friendly honks and waves from passing cars.
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THE MORE support grew for the teachers, the more Rahm Emanuel unraveled.
The man known for his take-no-prisoners approach to politics did his best to
whip up a parent backlash with hour-long press conferences during the opening
days of the strike. It didn't work. Sweaty and compulsively gulping from a
plastic water bottle, Emanuel's insulting comments seemed only to inspire
more public support for the CTU.
By the time the mayor sought a court injunction to end the strike as the
walkout entered its second week, a judge put a finger to the political winds
and decided not to act until CTU delegates could meet and discuss the deal.
The details of the agreement have been reported [1] fully elsewhere. But it
bears repeating that business publications like the /Wall Street Journal/ [2]
are clear about who won this battle: The CTU, not Emanuel.
As White House chief of staff for Barack Obama, Emanuel helped accelerate
school deform through the Obama administration's Race to the Top program.
From the moment he opened his campaign to become mayor, Emanuel made it clear
that he intended to run Chicago schools on the corporate model--and Chicago
teachers would have to submit or else.
But the CTU refused to roll over for Rahm. The union began organizing for a
confrontation long before negotiations began, much less picket signs were
printed.
When Emanuel and his handpicked school board targeted 17 schools for closure
or "turnaround" earlier this year, the CTU joined parents and community
activists in a grassroots mobilization to save the schools. This helped
solidify connections with groups that could provide critical support during
the walkout. Meanwhile, the union leadership--members of a rank-and-file
opposition caucus who defeated old guard officials in 2010--campaigned
systematically to involve members throughout the system.
All this paid off in a contract that held the line against Emanuel's
aggressive demands. While the CTU had to take a painful concession in reduced
compensation for laid-off teachers, the mayor failed to make a breakthrough
on the issues that were most important to him, such as imposition of merit
pay, heavier use of student test scores to evaluate teachers and fast-track
terminations of teachers with low ratings.
Emanuel also had to agree that half of new teachers hired anywhere in the
system would have to come from a pool of laid-off CTU members--something he'd
adamantly and repeatedly opposed. Then there's the fine print of the contract
that gives the CTU new leverage in key areas, including an anti-bullying
provision to help members stand up to abusive principals.
Those are not only big wins for the CTU, but for teachers everywhere who are
opposed to their unions' retreats on critical questions.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE LESSONS of the Chicago teachers' strike apply to the labor movement far
beyond one city and one occupation. Here's a list of some of the main ones:
-- *If you fight, you can win.* In the fifth year of a depressed economy,
union concessions have become routine. Whether the bosses are budget-strapped
state and local governments or profitable corporations like Caterpillar and
Verizon, workers are being hammered with pay freezes or outright cuts,
reduced pensions and higher health care costs.
Chicago teachers showed us a different way. Striking doesn't automatically
guarantee a victory, of course--the International Association of Machinists
were recently defeated in a six-week walkout at Caterpillar. But failing to
fight back only guarantees a further retreat.
-- *Union members must not only be mobilized, but organized.* In the last 20
years or so, the "mobilization model" of unionism has become the norm for
progressive labor organizations. Holding big protests and building alliances
with community and social movement groups have become fairly common tactics
for many unions.
But there's a difference between sending busloads of workers in matching
t-shirts to a protest and a systematic effort to build organization inside
and outside the workplace. The CTU's internal organizing operation was
directed at making the union a responsive and effective organization at every
school site--and when it was time to hit the picket lines, the effort paid
off.
-- *Social movement unionism is essential, especially in the public sector.*
Since the mid-1990s, once-insular unions have been more likely to engage with
community and faith organizations and various social struggles. Labor's
support for the Occupy Wall Street movement last fall was another important
step in that direction.
But the CTU has gone much further. The group that leads the union, the Caucus
of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE), took up the fight against school closures
years before they won office, and that that work continued afterward. While
the fight to save the 17 schools earlier this year failed, the union deepened
its ties to community groups opposed to the closures--and those organizations
supported the CTU at contract time. Crucially, the CTU spelled out its
alternative vision for public education in Chicago in a document titled "The
Schools Chicago's Students Deserve" [3] that called for full funding, smaller
class sizes, and an enriched curriculum.
-- *Local unions don't have to accept concessions pushed by national union
leaders.* By opposing merit pay and defending tenure rights, the CTU stood
firm where its national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT),
has retreated.
Negotiations in Chicago began with negotiators for the school district
pushing a copy of the New Haven, Conn., teachers' collective bargaining
agreement--a so-called "thin contract" that strips away teachers' job
protections won over decades. AFT President Randi Weingarten was personally
involved in negotiating that deal in New Haven, which she called a "model or
a template." The CTU said no--and used the strike weapon to hold the line.
-- *Public-sector unions don't have to accept givebacks just because
Democratic politicians demand them.* Democratic Govs. Jerry Brown of
California and Andrew Cuomo of New York have both extracted major concessions
on pay and benefits from public-sector unions. Labor leaders went along,
arguing that it's better to make some sacrifices than have someone like
Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker trying to eliminate collective
bargaining rights altogether.
The CTU said no way--and by doing so exposed the fact that Democrats are just
as committed as Republicans to attacking teachers' unions in the name of
"reform."
-- *Public-sector unions can lead the wider working class in the fight
against austerity.* Ever since Scott Walker packaged his union-busting bill
as budget reform, Republican and Democratic officials alike have claimed they
had to squeeze unions to benefit the taxpayers.
The CTU strike turned that argument on its head, winning popular support by
arguing that the real problem was the city's priorities of tax cuts for
business, instead of money for education. To withstand the current onslaught,
public-sector unions everywhere will need to follow the CTU's example and
point out how the services they provide benefit the entire working class.
-- *Union democracy is essential to rebuilding a fighting labor movement.*
Like most unions, the CTU invests enormous formal power in its president. But
the CORE team that leads the union sought, from the beginning, to maximize
union democracy. The union's executive board, a rubber stamp when the
conservative old guard ran the union, has come alive. House of Delegates
meetings are lively forums for debate and discussion of union policy.
CTU delegates made the decision to extend the strike into a second week in
order to have time to discuss a tentative contract agreement with members at
each school site. Over the next two days, delegates at hundreds of schools
conducted open-air meetings to discuss the pros and cons of the deal. It was
a lesson in union democracy that should be learned throughout the labor
movement.
-- *To be effective, strikes need to shut down operations and put pressure on
the boss.* The CTU stunned Rahm Emanuel by abandoning the old practice of
rotating two-hour shifts of all-day picketing at empty school buildings.
Instead, the CTU's constant mass rallies reinforced a sense of solidarity
among members and galvanized community support.
Of course, striking teachers don't face the same possibility of permanent
replacement and threats from strikebreaking security firms that factory
workers do. Still, the CTU strike can be an example for unions in any
industry: Mass pickets and solidarity can exert pressure on the employer--and
the greater the solidarity, the less the risk that scabbing operations or
court injunctions will succeed.
The list of lessons of the CTU strike could go on and on. But for a labor
movement starved of success for so long, that's an excellent start.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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[1] http://socialistworker.org/2012/09/19/victory-for-solidarity-and-struggle
[2] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443816804578004652048007358.html
[3] http://www.ctunet.com/blog/text/SCSD_Report-02-16-2012-1.pdf
