Wear Red Today
Remember that Mayor Rahm Emanuel reneged on a negotiated 4% raise. He then offered a 2% raise, with undetermined merit pay to follow as he saw fit and demanded, for this, that teachers work a 20% longer school day.
Rahm's corporate pals changed the law so that CTU needed a 75% vote of union members to authorize a strike, thinking that would never happen. Some "reformer" whose name I don't recall boasted of this at a meeting. When the vote came, 98% voted to authorize a strike, which came to 90% of union members.
Rahm criticized them for not waiting to hear what the arbitrator would say. But when the arbitrator came back, he recommended a 15-20% raise for teachers. Rahm was not pleased. Chicago teachers rejected it too, because it did not address school conditions.
A sticking point in current negotiations is teacher evaluations. Rahm is insisting on VAM junk science, while CTU insists they stick to reality. Personally, I'm pro-reality.
Let's see whether Rahm's mentor, President Barack Obama, finds his comfortable shoes and stands with labor today.
ATR! Makin' Copies!
I once took a personality test and was grouped as "INFP" -- basically, an introverted dreamer. It couldn't be more accurate. People often think I'm rude for ignoring them -- truth is, I genuinely didn't notice them because I was lost in thought. I'll often absentmindedly bump right into people at the shopping mall. Small talk with strangers is tortuous. The list of people I'm comfortable talking to must fit on the fingers of both hands. It's been this way since I was a little kid, and I don't see it changing anytime soon.
It's not a surprise that I never really mastered some of the more "practical" sides of life. I learned how to drive (just barely), but changing a flat tire? Checking my oil? Fixing anything that's broken? Forget it. Even pulling
