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	Workers Vanguard No. 1100	18 November 2016

Chicago Teachers Get Sold Out

As the clock ticked down to midnight on October 10, Chicago public school teachers were ready and prepared to strike. Four years ago, determined strike action by Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) members had held the line against Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s union-busting offensive. Widely popular among parents of the overwhelmingly black and Latino student population, the 2012 strike resonated nationwide as a crucial fight in defense of public education and labor rights. This time though, CTU officials pulled the plug just prior to the strike deadline, announcing a deal riddled with concessions. In so doing, the union bureaucrats also threw the despised Emanuel a lifeline, helping him keep labor peace for the Democrats ahead of the national elections. The CTU membership—worn down by a leadership that refused to do battle over the course of 16 months without a contract—voted by a large margin on October 31 and November 1 to accept the pact.

There is plenty to hate in the new contract. CTU president Karen Lewis is touting “no school closings for years 1-2” of the four-year contract, but it is retroactive, so the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) will have a free hand to start shuttering schools and laying off teachers next July. Veteran teachers will receive no wage increase in the first two years and only meager raises after that. Health care plan changes and premium increases will shift costs onto union members. And CPS has stolen “steps and lanes” wage increases (based on seniority and teacher education level) for the period teachers worked without a contract.

The major giveback is the elimination of the “pension pickup” for new hires as of January 1. Under the pickup, teachers pay 2 percent of their salaries toward their pensions and CPS covers the rest of the mandated employee contribution. Now an ever-growing section of the union membership will have a full 9 percent taken out of their paychecks. That is a formula for disaster, sowing division between new and veteran teachers and opening the floodgates to scrapping the pickup altogether—if those with seniority aren’t first disciplined or harassed out of their jobs. CPS is so anxious to dump veteran teachers, and usher in a cheaper workforce, that the board is offering a bonus if enough agree to retire by March.

Much was made by the CTU tops of a supposed cap on the growth of privately run charter schools, whose proliferation in Chicago and nationally has been a centerpiece of Democratic Party-sponsored education “reform” (read union-busting). However, as soon as the deal was ratified, CPS head Forrest Claypool bragged that CPS had not agreed to any cap. “There’s not a charter moratorium,” he revealed, adding: “There’s plenty of room for high-quality charter operators to apply.” In response, CTU vice president Jesse Sharkey whined that he was “dismayed.” A union leadership worth its salt would undertake a class-struggle drive to organize the charter schools as an elementary act in defense of the livelihoods of all teachers and to combat the privatization of education.

Why did this sellout go down? After all, the union was well positioned for a fight. Emanuel’s City Hall was still shaken by the mass protests following the release a year ago of the video of the racist cop shooting of Laquan McDonald, and the CTU had plenty of potential allies. The 500-member teachers union at UNO charter schools was also poised to strike in October, and 9,000 Chicago transit workers have been working under an expired contract.

The answer has a lot to do with the trade-union bureaucracy’s embrace of the capitalist Democratic Party as the “lesser evil” (or “friend of labor”), even as the Democrats wage war on the CTU and other unions. Take Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, to which both the CTU and UNO teachers union are affiliated. This Democratic Party loyalist and big-time Clinton supporter flew into Chicago to personally push through a deal to head off a UNO teachers strike that could well have re-ignited the ranks of the much larger CTU. In 2012, she pressured the CTU tops to avoid a strike because it threatened to rock the boat too much during Obama’s re-election bid.

No less than Weingarten, “progressive” bureaucrats like Lewis and Sharkey and their Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) seek to boost the Democrats and falsely portray the capitalist rulers and working people as sharing common interests. Indeed, ever since the CTU contract expired in June 2015, Lewis & Co. have taken great pains to avoid strike action and rehabilitate Emanuel’s image. Despite provocations and attacks by the mayor and his flunky Claypool, the CORE leadership refused to even take a strike vote until mid December (when the vote was overwhelmingly in favor). With Emanuel on the ropes amid widespread calls for his resignation over the McDonald cover-up, it was a perfect time for city labor to launch some real struggle (see “We Need a Multiracial Workers Party!”, WV No. 1081, 15 January).

In order to avert a strike, in January Lewis tried to push through a rotten sellout that would have gutted pension benefits and jacked up health care costs. That offer was unanimously rejected by the CTU bargaining committee. To justify delaying a strike, Lewis and Sharkey hid behind the anti-union SB7 law (which, in 2012, Lewis herself had signed off on), claiming that the union was compelled to wait months until a pro-management arbitrator had rendered an opinion. With anger bubbling in the ranks, on April 1 the CTU tops staged a one-day walkout designed to let off some steam and convince the state government to cough up more money for public education.

At the time, Lewis tellingly aimed her fire at Republican governor Bruce Rauner, giving a pass to the Democrats who control the state legislature. Meanwhile, Sharkey openly pushed class collaboration, calling for “public pressure” so that “CPS and CTU can come together with some joint solutions down at the capital.” It is not the job of the unions to “find the money,” i.e., to help the capitalists balance the budgets that reflect the priorities of the bosses.

CORE’s capitulation to Emanuel in advance of the elections is bound up with years of CTU endorsements and millions of dollars of financial support to Illinois Democrats up and down the line, from former governor Pat Quinn and legislative party boss Mike Madigan to 2015 mayoral candidate Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. Time and again, CORE has staked the union’s future on “fair treatment” by so-called “friends of labor,” with the result that the union has been slapped around by these representatives of the capitalist class enemy and their party.

Much of the reformist left has sought to put a shine on CORE. If there were a prize for slimy cheerleading, it would have to go to the International Socialist Organization (ISO). In an 18 October Socialist Worker article, the ISO with shameless cowardice dodges taking a position for or against the sellout contract. In fact, the only firm position taken by these waterboys for the union bureaucrats is endorsement of Lewis/Sharkey. The ISO gushes that the CTU leadership’s actions in 2012 and “in this contract round—can serve as a guide in the ongoing struggle for the schools our children and our teachers deserve, in Chicago and around the country.” This gloss on betrayal is a big middle finger to the teachers.

While Socialist Worker has on several occasions raised objections to the CTU officialdom’s support of this or that Democrat, the matter is presented as an unfortunate blemish on the face of the CORE “union reformers.” Sharkey, who is deeply involved in the union’s backing of Democratic Party politicians, for years was a regular contributor to Socialist Worker. In an interview with Chicago Magazine (February 2015) during last year’s mayoral elections, Sharkey bragged of working eleven straight hours for “Chuy” and hugging the Democrat at his primary election celebration. This bowing and scraping for the Dems has merited not a mention from the ISO fake socialists, a silence entirely consistent with their championing of the capitalist Green Party as a liberal pressure group on the Democrats.

Decades-long political subservience to the Democrats has gutted the power of the unions. What is needed is a class-struggle labor leadership—one based on complete independence from the bosses and their political operatives. The money and resources exist to provide quality, integrated education for all, but to seize that wealth requires breaking the bourgeoisie’s hold on power. To that end, a workers party must be forged to lead the struggle to overturn this decaying capitalist order through socialist revolution.