Empowered Chicago Teachers Union Never Strikes Out

The WSJ’s “Why the Chicago Teachers Always Get What It Wants” pegs state law as giving union leaders “extraordinary power” to strike & thereby “ignore [not only] children,” but rank & file, too, cause most real educators WANT to teach not play politics.

Explained authors Ted Dabrowki & John Klingner: “For the 5th time in 10 years, the Chicago Teachers Union shut students out of the classroom this month. Covid mitigation policy was the reported reason for the recent 4-day walkout in the nation’s 3d largest school system, but a look at the CTU’s decades-long history of strikes & walkouts shows the pandemic was an excuse for the union’s latest power play … For more than half a century, the disruptions have come with shocking regularity. In 1969, 71, 73, 75, 80, 83, 84, 85, 87, 2012, 16, 19, 21 & [now] 22 the CTU threw the lives of more than 330,000 Chicago children and their parents into turmoil.

How’s it possible for a radical “progressive” union to pull this nonsense off in a radically “progressive” city run by radically “progressive” politicians? Argue the authors: “Illinois lawmakers make it compulsory for state & local governments to bargain with public-sector unions over a host of issues” & current governor Pritzker “expanded the already long list” while “Mayor Lori Lightfoot has appeased the union several times” in imitation of predecessor Rahm “The Obama Bomb” Emanuel. Few states, they note, mollycoddle their unions to this extent, the authors noted. Does the Land of Lincoln pols ever learn? Short answer: No.

Davd Soul