Pending Teachers’ Strike in Chicago Reflects Long and Convoluted Funding Crisis | janresseger

Pending Teachers’ Strike in Chicago Reflects Long and Convoluted Funding Crisis | janresseger:

Pending Teachers’ Strike in Chicago Reflects Long and Convoluted Funding Crisis

The Chicago Teachers Union has voted to strike next Tuesday, October 11. The union has not had a contract for over a year, and in threatening to strike, teachers are not only expressing dissatisfaction with the contract offered by Chicago Public Schools but also with years of state funding cuts and financial mismanagement that culminated over the summer in worries that the school district faced bankruptcy. Over 90 percent of teachers participated in the vote that authorized the strike, and of those, 95.6 percent voted to strike.

Here are some of the issues teachers are protesting in the contract itself.  First, during negotiations in years past, teachers agreed to give up salary increases when the District agreed to pay a higher percentage of their pension contributions. But in this contract, reports Sarah Karp for WBEZ News, the salary increases proposed by the district are contingent on teachers giving up what they negotiated in previous years and “paying 7 percent more of the employee contribution into the pension fund.”  Karp explains further: “That… offer would give teachers an 8.73 percent raise over four years, but teachers would pay 7 percent more into their pension fund and between 1.5 percent and 3 percent more for health insurance. Teachers would also get salary increases based on experience and education, called steps and lanes.  Considering the increase into the pension fund and payments to health insurance, steps and lanes would be the mechanism by which most teachers would see an increase in compensation.”  “One of the biggest sticking points for the union is that the offer Chicago Public Schools has made could result in some teachers getting less pay at the end of the contract compared to the beginning.”

But salary and benefits are only part of what teachers are protesting in Chicago. The Sun Times quotes a union spokesperson who explains that the vote “should come as no surprise to the Board, the mayor or parents because educators have been angry about the school-based cuts that have hurt special education students, reduced librarians, counselors, social workers and teachers’ aides, and eliminated thousands of teaching positions.” Significant staff cuts Pending Teachers’ Strike in Chicago Reflects Long and Convoluted Funding Crisis | janresseger: