Old school. “I’d spit in there eye before I’d vote for anything but the strike. God damn it!”
CTU President Robert Healey. 1980.
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Saturday coffee.
Happy Mother’s Day Mrs. Eileen Quinn. Teachers you worked with your entire working career may soon be royally screwed if your son gets his way. Governor Quinn’s mom wasn’t a teacher. But she was the secretary at Hinsdale High School for thirty years. Quinn’s brother is a history teacher in a parochial school. He’s not [...]
Word is that there will be a pension bill next week.
Word is circulating that there will be a bill put before the Illinois General Assembly next week. Will it increase teacher contributions? Will it move the eligibility age to 67? Will it reduce or eliminate the COLA? Will it shift the share of the obligation that the state has to local districts? Yes? Some?All four? [...]
Responding to “pension fatigue,” requests for We Are One phone number to legislators.
You can reach the We Are One website here. Available is the phone number that will link you to Illinois legislators.
Treats.
The sheet gets passed around in August of each year. I sign up, usually with Cynthia and Matthew. Friday treats. “Treats.” It’s such an elementary school word. Would adults, working at the high school or in an office downtown, call breakfast, “treats?” Everyone is supposed to sign up for two of the Fridays. We try [...]
Rahm organizes a mob of pension killers each will of whom will receive a pension.
The Tribune reported that Rahm gathered a mob of local mayors at a press conference to call for breaking the pension promise, the contract with public employees. Mayor Daley left Chicago City Hall collecting $180,000 a year on his mayoral and other public pensions. A teacher in Illinois receives on the average of $46,000. Many [...]
Zorn and Brown on pensions. Round 3.
This is the third part of the exchange between the Tribune’s Eric Zorn and retired teacher and blogger Glen Brown. Zorn admits he has little knowledge of the Illinois Constitution but thinks we should ignore the part that says teacher pensions cannot be “diminished or impaired.” Brown explains the rules. To Glen, As you know, [...]
Pension fatigue?
It is hard to measure the numbers. Perhaps the We Are One coalition or the IEA Government Relations office can give some data. Or maybe they don’t want to. But here is what I’m hearing. We are not getting the numbers in response to this year’s latest assault on teacher pensions that we got last [...]
Illinois’ Representative Darlene Senger. She thinks women are livestock.
Naperville’s GOP House Representative Darlene Senger confuses women with livestock. I know. There are some of my teacher friends who don’t like it when I stray off topic. But, that’s what I do. Take Naperville’s GOP House Representative, Darlene Senger. She sits on the Governor’s Pension Panel. A death panel, actually, since its proposals will [...]
Two dinners.
Hackney’s onion loaf. There are two retirement dinners tonight after school. My district is hosting one. My Region of the IEA is holding the other. The Region dinner is at a burger place called Hackney’s. Union activists from all the Region’s locals will be there. And retirees. Each Local president will get up and say [...]
The CTU on Rahm’s pension proposal and “shared sacrifice.”
The Chicago Teachers Union today responded to Mayor Emanuel’s pension proposal. “The Mayor has talked repeatedly about “shared sacrifice” but in the pension proposals offered today he only asks for educators, librarians, firefighters and other city employees—the taxpaying base of our city—who earn modest pensions to sacrifice. Mayor Emmanuel touts the 401K option as the [...]
What if Senator Mark Kirk had worked at Wal-Mart?
Phil Kadner in the Southtown: Kirk’s facing a difficult recovery process. But he’s a lucky guy. Millions of Americans have no health insurance. No job security. Millions of other workers would discover that their health insurance didn’t cover the costs of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago when they needed it. But instead of using his [...]
Chicago Teacher Union’s Karen Lewis on pensions.
CTU President Karen Lewis on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight. What are your thoughts on pensions for teachers? “I think a lot of people don’t realize that we don’t get social security at all. Pension is the only retirement thing we have outside of individual savings and plans. So it matters to us. I’m a younger teacher, [...]
The heat is on. Note corrected date!
Illinois State Representative Darlene Senger. It is getting harder and harder for Illinois legislators to hide. And pressure from active and retired teachers is not just coming in the form of traditional IEA lobbying. For example, Naperville, next Thursday, May 17th (corrected) from 4 to 6 PM. Folks will gather at the Free Speech Pavillion [...]
Life in Rahm’s Chicago. “F— pensions.”
Rahm went to Springfield and jumped to the head of the lynch mob. “F— the UAW,” he was once famously quoted. “F— you,” he once said to the President of the Chicago teachers union. “F— pensions,” he told Springfield lawmakers today. Testifying before a House committee, Mr. Emanuel called for a 10-year holiday on paying [...]
Zorn and Brown. The pension discussion, part 2.
Tribune columnist Eric Zorn and retired teacher and blogger Glen Brown continue the conversation. Glen writes: Please comment on Eric Zorn’s new blog post discussion, pt. 2. It’s important that more of us now join the conversation. If you do not, Zorn will assume that there is only a small segment of teachers who care enough to [...]
Maurice Sendak. RIP.
“But the wild things cried, “Oh please don’t go – we’ll eat you up – we love you so!”
Thinking about Teacher Appreciation Day.
Obama has decided to declare this week National Charter School Week. The guy sure knows how to appreciate teachers. I haven’t felt so appreciated since he announced support for firing all the union teachers in Central Falls, Rhode Island. There’s a joke going around Facebook: Arne Duncan supports same-sex marriage if you can find a [...]
The in box. Florida’s Governor Scott and Illinois’ Governor Quinn. Common pension views.
Ken Previti sends along this pension information: FACT: Below is an excerpt and a link to the full Sunshine Review article about the Scott legislation that the courts just ruled as unconstitutional regarding teacher pensions. (This will continue to be argued in higher courts.) It is an ALEC boilerplate legislation that is so similar to Quinn’s proposal [...]
Illinois teacher unions among those targeted by GOP front group.
Politico this morning is reporting: The State Government Leadership Foundation will announce the launch of a new ad campaign today that targets teachers unions for using “big money and bully tactics to protect their own interests at the local, state and federal level at the expense of taxpayers and our nation’s schoolchildren.” The six-figure TV [...]
With Arne down the rabbit hole.
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice `without pictures [...]
Dear Charlie.
Sixty IEA members travel from the north suburbs of Chicago to Springfield to fight for pensions, but nobody from the IEA Communications office takes notice. Dear Charlie McBarron, Just because you’re pissed at me, Charlie, don’t take it out on everyone in Region 36. I knew things had gotten bad when you unfriended me from [...]
Final push to save teacher pensions. Keep the pressure on everyone.
The only time you will read me quoting Ronald Reagan: “Trust, but verify.” As we head back to school tomorrow, we are heading into the final month of the Illinois General Assembly session. Crunch time on the pension issue. Active and retired teachers have to step up. A contact a day. Every day. And the [...]
Sunday links.
Cairo, Egypt. May 4th. John Dillon’s Pension Vocabulary Word of the Week: Misinformation. “Working as a hand puppet for the Illinois Policy Institute, ABC’s Chuck Goudie, the crack investigative reporters for the “I” Team (Eyewitness News) on Channel 7 Chicago, announced that he and the IPI had uncovered a “brand new and improved” pension scam [...]
The in box. From Glen Brown (a wonderful poet himself), a poem for Teacher Appreciation Week.
For Fred Klonsky and all teachers The Thing You Must Remember by Maggie Anderson The thing you must remember is how, as a child, you worked hours in the art room, the teacher’s hands over yours, molding the little clay dog. You must remember how nothing mattered but the imagined dog’s fur, the shape of [...]
Back at the Red Line. Why I’m a sucker to Tony.
On Friday I’m back at the Red Line Tap. There’s Tony at the bar. Tony is always at the bar, so that’s not a surprise. “You look like crap,” says Tony. “Let me buy you one.” “Long week,” I say. “Seven days, like always,” says Tony, who has no permanent relationship with the capitalist system [...]
The Chicago Teachers Union Stands Strong. Rally May 23rd at the Auditorium Theater.
Historic Rally in support of a fair contract with the CTU. May 23rd. Auditorium Theatre 50 East Congress CTU Members Only Please bring membership card or paystub Doors Open at 3:00pm Rally Begins at 4:30pm March follows Join with thousands of CTU members for a huge membership meeting, to be followed by a short march [...]