Modeling the Education They Want To Be: The Great Chicago Teachers Union Transformation
Sunday, 02 March 2014 00:00By Eleanor J Bader, Truthout | Book Review
(Book cover via Verso Books)Micah Uetricht's "Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity" relates the stirring transformation of the Chicago Teachers Union into a democratically organized force for social justice.According to labor journalist Micah Uetricht, it's high time for trade unions in the United States to decide whether they want to wither away and follow a "business unionism" model of concessions and shrinkage, or follow "social movement unionism," a bottom-up, democratic organizing strategy that is aligned with social justice movements throughout the country.
The Chicago Teacher's Union [CTU], Uetricht writes in his book, Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity, is a prime example of the latter, a feisty, transparent, activist-led group that is willing to fight the good fight and challenge the entrenched attitudes that have made unions irrelevant to far too many workers. Uetricht makes clear that the CTU was not always a beacon and charts the union's transition from a staid, top-down organization to one that engages teachers, paraprofessionals, students and neighborhood residents in community betterment efforts throughout Chicago.
The shift, he writes, began in 2010, when a slate of teachers calling themselves the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators [CORE] took the reins of the 26,000 member CTU from CORE's predecessors, the United Progressive Caucus. "By 2010, the UPC leadership had atrophied," Uetricht explains, and was cowering in the face of school closures, the growth of nonunion charter schools, and the Renaissance 2010 "free market education reforms" championed by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and