Mike Klonsky's Blog: Looking for something better to come from vitriolic contract talks

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Looking for something better to come from vitriolic contract talks

Looking for something better to come from vitriolic contract talks

Striking CTU members gather over two days to study the 2012 contract offer before voting to end the strike. 

The contract talks between CPS and the CTU are going pretty much the way I expected and just the way I feared. In some ways, they are a continuation of the contentious and divisive campaign tactics that marked the mayor's race between Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle.

Lightfoot’s victory — winning every single ward — was a blow to CTU’s power and perceptions about its influence. And the union has been struggling to get some of its mojo back ever since. CTU’s dilemma is that it’s trying to wage a war with a mayor who’s not Rahm Emanuel — an enemy CTU knew how to fight. -- Illinois Playbook

The CTU and SEIU Local 73, cornerstones of the progressive movement here in Chicago, both backed Preckwinkle who was soundly defeated by the current mayor. Both candidates ran as "progressives" but in the end, Lightfoot and a group of insurgent city council candidates rode an anti-machine wave to victory.

But as I predicted at the time,

With election day only a few weeks away, and Lightfoot apparently pulling far ahead, internecine warfare has broken out among the progressives to such a CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: Looking for something better to come from vitriolic contract talks