All out for the CTU on Thursday.
Graphic: Ellen Gradman.
The Chicago Teachers Union has called for a large turnout on Thursday of teachers, parents and community members to demonstrate their outrage over the move by CPS CEO Forrres Clayfool to shred the collective bargaining process. Clayfool is acting unilaterally, promising to layoff hundreds, maybe thousands, of staff and to cut contractual compensation.
Prior to the vote of the bargaining team to reject the last board offer on Monday, some self-proclaimed critics of little substance attacked Karen Lewis and the CTU leadership team for selling-out the membership by accepting a tentative agreement. Jumping the gun before the bargaining team or the membership even had a chance to see what was offered seemed very divisive to me.
There was no TA.
Chicago Teacher’s Union VP Jesse Sharkey appeared on Chicago Tonight and discussed the current situation.
On the bargaining unit’s rejection of what was initially described as a “serious offer”“It was never a tentative agreement,” Sharkey said. “We deliberated for more than 40 hours. There are a number of things that are in this offer that people took very seriously and as a sign of progress. But in the end, we just can’t trust the district to live up to a series of promises that they made.”On the state of continued negotiations“We had a brief meeting this morning. Kind of a gut-check,” Sharkey said. “Today was a pretty tense day, but we wanted to reaffirm the commitment. We have a serious bargaining relationship with theAll out for the CTU on Thursday. | Fred Klonsky: