Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Thousands of CTU members, supporters will rally today

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Thousands of CTU members, supporters will rally today:

Thousands of CTU members, supporters will rally today

by Mike Klonsky

If Rahm Emanuel thought that Chicago teachers would roll over and play dead in the face of his war on the CTU,  he's badly mistaken. Yesterday it was announced that nearly 80 percent of CTU members have voted to reject the latest teacher contract proposal in recent straw polls — more than what would be needed to authorize a real strike under the new anti-union law, SB7.

At 3 this afternoon, thousands of Chicago teachers will meet in a unity rally inside the Auditorium Theater at State & Congress. At 4:30, many more will join them in a massive show of solidarity with a rally and march.
I will definitely be there. Wouldn't want to miss this historic event.

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Rahm's poll numbers have plummeted in recent weeks, mainly in reaction to his attacks on the CTU.  The mayor has shown himself to be little more than a union-busting corporate Republicrat in a town where there is no Republican Party. One party operative even astutely referred to him as the "Democrats' Karl Rove."

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Rahm spins

Despite all the mayor's ridiculous spin about how the city "survived" his 

The most vile attack yet on Wisconsin teachers

by Mike Klonsky

This is the most cowardly and treacherous attack yet on public school teachers, make that, on all public employees. That image above is of a full-page newspaper ad taken out in the Janesville Gazette, the local newspaper in Paul Ryan's district. The Gazette, to its credit, didn't print the ad, but it still managed to find its way into subscribers' mailboxes through fliers placed in the paper's home-delivery tube system. The names you can't read in this image are the names of teachers in Janesville who signed the petition to recall Scott Walker. Next to their names, is their salary. At the bottom of the unsigned ad, there is a space to sign to "opt-out" of any