Stand against Rahm! :-)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/11/stand_against_rahm/

First Wisconsin. Then Occupy. Now Chicago. The teachers' strike is the next chapter in the fight against plutocracy

By Rick Perlstein


Tuesday, Sep 11, 2012 06:45 AM CDT

CHICAGO — I was awoken by honking car horns yesterday morning, and couldn’t have been happier for the fact. Chicago’s public schoolteachers are on strike against the city government and Mayor Rahm Emanuel. And while no one likes the budget crisis that forms the strike’s fiscal context, nor the fact that 350,000 students aren’t at school, much of Chicago is finding joy in the municipal impasse — which is why, anywhere within earshot of the schools where the Chicago Teachers Union’s 25,500 members are picketing in front of their workplaces, solidarity car horns are blasting away.



(Credit: AP/Reuters/Salon/Benjamin Wheelock)


Since Rahm Emanuel’s election in the spring of 2011, Chicago’s teachers have been asked to eat shit by a mayor obsessed with displaying to the universe his “toughness” — toughness with the working-class people that make the city tick; toughness with the protesters standing up to say “no”; but never, ever toughness with the vested interests, including anti-union charter school advocates, who poured $12 million into his coffers to elect him mayor (his closet competitor raised $2.5 million). The roots of the strike began when Emanuel announced his signature education initiative: extending Chicago’s school day. Overwhelmingly, Chicago’s teachers support lengthening the day, which is the shortest of any major district in the country. Just not the way Rahm wanted to ram it down their throats: 20 percent more work; 2 percent more pay.

He had already canceled a previously negotiated 4 percent cost-of-living raise, and accused teachers who balked of not caring about their students. The teachers’ response to this abuse is something all of us should be paying attention to. If Chapter 1 of the American people’s modern grass-roots fight against the plutocracy was the demonstrations at the Wisconsin State Capitol in the spring of 2011, and Chapter 2 was the Occupy encampments of that summer, the Chicago Teachers Union’s stand against Emanuel should go down as Chapter 3. It’s been inspiration to anyone frustrated that people have forgotten how good it feels to stand up to bullies — and how effective it can be.

The CTU lost the first skirmish last year when Emanuel trundled down to the state capitol in Springfield to wire a new statute sure to forestall accountability for his draconian plan: alone among Illinois municipal workers, teachers would need a 75 percent vote among their membership to authorize a strike. Then in June of this year, after a rally that overflowed a 3,929-capacity theater with red CTU T-shirts, almost 90 percent of members voted through that authorization, should their leaders choose to call a strike. Counting spoiled ballots, the number of teachers voting against the authorization amounted to little more than a handful.

FULL story at link

[montanacowboy]

1. Emmanuel & Arne Duncan

corporate rot - turning our public schools into training fields to teach to the test;
no critical thinking skills allowed - turn them into low paying slaves for Walmart while the corporate bosses rake in the millions of taxpayers $$

and our President and his Dept of Education are part of this whether or not we want to acknowledge it

this shit has got to stop

[progressoid]

16. +1

[DeSwiss]

2. K&R

- Ouch!

[bigwillq]

3. I stand against Rahm.

[Egalitarian Thug]

4. K&R In Solidarity. n/t

[sabrina 1]

5. They are getting support from all over the country and even other parts of the world. This is

a part of the Global Movement to end the disastrous Corporate takeover of the first world, since they already destroyed the Third World with their corporate policies.

Go Teachers!!

[Hell Hath No Fury]

6. I will HAPPILY stand against Rahm --

and any other "Democrat" who chooses to treat labor in this fashion.

[Luminous Animal]

7. Kick.

[Vidar]

8. K&R

[mopinko]

9. 98%. not almost 90%, 98%.

seems like every story i see refuses to use that very clear number. hmmmm.

[hay rick]

11. Explanation here.

http://peoplesworld.org/chicago-teachers-cast-overwhelming-strike-authorization-vote/

From the article:

Ninety-one percent of 25,000 teachers voted and of those, 98% voted to authorize a strike. The vote doesn't mean a strike will occur, but is seen as a way for the union to strengthen its bargaining position.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and school privatization forces had sought to handcuff the CTU by gaining passage of a new state law requiring 75% of union members to vote for strike authorization for it to be effective. Every non-vote is now considered a "No" vote.

91% x 98% = 89.18%. So yes, 98% of those voting voted to authorize the strike. The 9% who didn't vote had their votes counted as against.

[mopinko]

14. well if we get to count votes like that

man, i would like to recount quite a few elections. 91% is a pretty damn good turn out.

[hay rick]

15. And the 98% approval by those voting is overwhelming.

The media could just as easily say "98% of those voting approved the strike, and over 90% of the teachers participated in the strike vote." But that would tend to undermine the preferred anti-union narrative...

[cr8tvlde]

10. Camera shots of his Smug Mug was the only part of the DNC

that made me want to turn it off. Who gave him a front row seat? Egads he's made a mess of things.

I'm sorry, teachers do not leave their classrooms and their students for petty issues. Vote him out...post haste.

[ibegurpard]

12. It's disgusting that Democrats are behind the corporate education deform agenda

[hay rick]

13. Emanuel's anti-union connections.

A post on union-busting California company VWR here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1117&pid=769

Recap. VWR is owned by Madison Dearborn Partners. Madison Dearborn Partners is Emanuel's largest lifetime campaign contributor. Link: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=Career&cid=N00024813