Victory to Chicago Teachers Strike!

SEPTEMBER 11—Some 30,000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) went out on strike yesterday morning, the first school strike in Chicago in 25 years. Pickets in red CTU shirts massed at hundreds of public schools to fight the union-busting attacks that have been a centerpiece of Democratic mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration. Over 10,000 strikers and their supporters flooded the streets around City Hall and the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) headquarters, chanting “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Rahm Emanuel’s got to go!” and “We need teachers, we need books! We need the money Rahm Emanuel took!” The strike is being met with wide enthusiasm in Chicago, with parents and students turning out to join the picket lines.

A year ago, Emanuel unilaterally canceled a pay raise and heavily pressured the CTU tops into agreeing to a longer school day. Now he is trying to remove all protections that union members have against discipline and firings by the school administration and its principals. While teachers are rightly infuriated by Emanuel’s bullying, there are widespread illusions in his former boss, Barack Obama. Make no mistake: Obama is the main promoter of such “reforms” and continues to wage war against teachers unions across the country. It is no accident that Paul Ryan today stands solidly with Rahm Emanuel against the union. The Democratic and the Republican parties are simply different wings of the bourgeoisie and are equally committed to making workers pay for the chaos caused by the capitalist system.

The Service Employees union tops have agreed to provide janitorial services and student aides to keep 144 schools open as day-care centers. All public schools in Chicago should be shut down, and that takes union solidarity. Picket lines mean don’t cross! The cops are anything but labor’s friends—their social function in the service of the capitalists is to take down picket lines. The CPS is also wielding its expanding number of non-union charter schools as a club against the CTU. The union should answer this challenge by mobilizing during the strike to organize all teachers, whether in parochial or charter schools, into the CTU.

As we wrote in “Chicago Teachers: Strike to Win!” (WV No. 1006, 3 August): “To beat back the union-busters, teachers must turn to their union allies in the schools and city—such as the transit workers and firefighters embroiled in their own contract disputes—not Democratic Party politicians who falsely parade themselves as ‘friends of labor’.”