Social justice slate sweeps to victory in the Chicago Teachers Union
by Ron Whitehorne on Jun 14 2010 Posted in Social justice unionism
Chicago teachers last week elected CORE (Caucus of Rank and File Educators), a group that has worked along side the community to fight school closings, teacher firings, and privatization over the past two years, to head the 30,000 member Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).
In a five-way race this Spring CORE finished second to the incumbent slate headed by current CTU president Marilyn Stewart by a handful of votes. But in the two-way runoff CORE won by a landslide, winng nearly 60% of the votes cast and sweeping all nine citywide offices and all of the 23 vice presidencies for elementary and high schools.
The United Progressive Caucus headed by Stewart used all the advantages of incumbency, out spending the opposition by a huge margin. But the tide of anger at Stewart's failure to defend teachers from the corporate inspired Duncan school reform known as Renaissance 2010 swept all before it
Pauline Lipman from Teachers for Social Justice describes CORE as " an explicitly anti-neoliberal, social justice union and a key member of the Grassroots Education Movement in Chicago, a coalition of teachers, parents, students, and
