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*** UPDATED x2 *** Will history repeat itself?
Tuesday, Feb 2, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller *** UPDATE 1 *** Still in denial…
*** UPDATE 2 *** Sheesh…
* Mark Brown on the CTU bargaining committee’s rejection of the contract deal cut by Karen Lewis…
Agreed on both points. * And let’s hope we don’t have a repeat of 2011, when Lewis signed off on an education reform bill along with the IFT and the IEA only to walk it back after she was ripped to shreds by her own union. And, like now, Lewis was also assailed by folks on the other side of the negotiating table for not being a trustworthy bargaining partner. She cut a deal then disowned it. After that legislative debacle, Lewis was forced to become even more hardline, which led directly to the 2012 strike. …Adding… I should’ve noted here that the CTU will be electing officers this spring, which is why Claypool wanted these contract negotiations wrapped up as soon as possible. If this isn’t finalized soon, the campaign will make it even more unlikely that they can get a deal because Lewis will have to guard her left flank (and, considering this union’s membership, it’s a huge flank).
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- okgo - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:35 am:
Its the same problem that is afflicting the rest of state (and even federal) government right now:
You fuel the brush fire with soaring rhetoric, but it leaves you no safe space to negotiate compromise.
Teachers don’t follow the day-to-day, they just know what CTU tells them - Rahm and Central Office are evil, can’t be trusted, and anything short of their $1 billion / year ask is strike-worthy.
While it works from a power and positioning standpoint, it eliminates possibility for compromise.
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:40 am:
The inmates are on the verge of taking over the asylum.
Even Lewis recognized this as a serious and reasonable compromise. If they don’t believe her when she tells them CPS can’t offer a much better deal, they are in for a rude awakening. The district is broke.
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:41 am:
Long way to go. Are many contract negotiations settled with the first “serious” offer?
We’ll be 40 games into the MLB season before there’s even the possibility of a strike. And school will be out the next month.
- SAP - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:43 am:
To paraphrase Joe Magrane, CTU has one foot in the grave and the other foot on a banana peel.
- okgo - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:47 am:
to word’s point -
At this point, it seems unlikely that a deal is reached before the end of the legislative session.
Why would you agree on a deal before you know what CPS’ overall financial situation is? Either side?
So - strike in May to drive the urgency of a deal before May 31.
- LizPhairTax - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:47 am:
The whole deal was predicated on retirements and unsubstantiated revenue. The negotiating team brought it to the bargaining team and they rejected it.
Anybody ever negotiate something on behalf of a client, say I’ll bring it to them and get back to you, and have them reject it? Happens all the time.
There’s no trust between CTU members and CPS. The information leaks around this thing did not help.
Folks are probably right that the bargaining unit isn’t reading the climate the right way.
So here we are. There’s work to be done and time to do it. The stories will be about the personalities involved and not the issues and that’s unfortunate.
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:48 am:
Is the “Big Bargaining Team” name obnoxious to anyone else?
Even the name sounds designed to encourage a confrontational and uncompromising approach.
- Honeybear - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:50 am:
Again I find myself conflicted as to whether or not I care if the public is “on our side”. As OW says, you just have to have 60/30. Does the public matter in that respect? Also the public has been poisoned over the years against Labor. The Trump/Cruz folks will accelerate that and the bifurcation will be complete. Those who are on our side now will probably stay the same and visa versa. The difference now is that the Trolls have a higher and louder perch to scream from with social media and other media being corporately owned. So let them scream. It doesn’t change 60/30 and that’s what Labor is going after. Our backs are up against the wall and we’ve got no where to retreat. It’s forward or die.
- LizPhairTax - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:51 am:
Anonymous @9:48 are you also Anonymous @9:40?
Come on man, pick a name. Throw in an asterisk or something. It’s designed to differentiate it from the small bargaining team. Crazy, I know.
- A guy - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:53 am:
To Labor all over the state of any stripe; your enemy is within and thy initials are CTU.
They’re acting badly and affecting all of you. Just watch.
- Carhartt Representative - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:53 am:
=Teachers don’t follow the day-to-day, they just know what CTU tells them - Rahm and Central Office are evil, can’t be trusted, and anything short of their $1 billion / year ask is strike-worthy.=
No, it’s the teachers in the buildings that don’t trust CPS. They’re the ones who have suffered under weasel words time and again.
- lake county democrat - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:56 am:
Wordslinger is making the same point I did yesterday. Scared now.
- Carhartt Representative - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:57 am:
=Long way to go. Are many contract negotiations settled with the first “serious” offer?
We’ll be 40 games into the MLB season before there’s even the possibility of a strike. And school will be out the next month.=
Yeah, a big difference between a serious offer and one that’s acceptable. The CTU has given back $2 billion in 5 years and they’re again the only ones called on to sacrifice.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:58 am:
===We’ll be 40 games into the MLB season before there’s even the possibility of a strike===
Yeah, but guess what else is happening in the very same time period?
CTU officer elections.
- Wensicia - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 9:59 am:
Times have changed, the support for automatic raises when CPS is deep in debt is gone. The public supported the teachers last time and saw 50 schools closed. With everyone’s property taxes going up to support the pension deficit, does the CTU really believe they can expect the same support from from the public when they won’t accept picking up their portion of pension contributions on top of expected raises?
- Anon404 - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 10:04 am:
Thanks Rich for the reminder about Karen Lewis’ flip-flopping on SB 7 during the Spring 2011.
Lewis and Jesse Sharkey have never leveled with their rank-and-file. Instead, they’ve fed them a steady diet of easy answers. The teachers have been told for years by their union that all their problems could be solved simply eliminating TIFs, taxing financial transactions, or enacting a progressive income tax. None of those things were ever going to happen — and most of Lewis’ leadership team knew it.
But her team had to run for re-election late last year and straight talk with the membership might have hurt that effort. (Running for re-election as union head was on her mind when she flip-flopped on SB 7, too.)
Now she has to walk back the easy answers to get her membership to ratify a deal. Yesterday showed that’s gonna be tough.
- Tone - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 10:11 am:
“Why would you agree on a deal before you know what CPS’ overall financial situation is?”
Is this a serious question? Where have you been the last 5 years? CPS is broke. There is no money. It needs to borrower in order to pay its bills.
- TA - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 10:26 am:
First, I will say that I can see how CTU members would have a problem with the re opener provision if not enough people retire. This leaves too great of a chance that they’ll be right back at the bargaining table. In that sense, this wouldn’t be a final agreement. I think they just have to decide on cuts or other options if the retirements don’t come.
It is 100 times better to have an offer voted down by an elected committee than the entire membership, so this isn’t as bad as some are portraying it. Many unions have a requirement that a proposal be voted on by an executive committee separate from the bargaining team before taking it to the membership. The upside is the membership has seen the details now and has the opportunity to give feedback to their elected representatives. This information will help the bargaining team see where they need to go. Sometimes, when you’re locked up in that bargaining room for weeks and months, you get so close to it that it gets harder to see the outside perspective. It’s easy to criticize, but I guarantee you that none of us would be perfect under the pressure of this situation.
- Juice - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 10:32 am:
Anon404, yes that’s been in a lot of the external CTU rhetoric, but those things get played up more by their allies than Lewis herself.
I thought she fairly laid out what she views as being CPS’s main budgetary challenges. 1. Increased debt service because of the district’s continued practice of issuing new bonds to pay for existing debt service. 2. The required employee pension contribution under state law. 3. The very significant proliferation of charter school contracts, which has been going on while CPS has been crying poor.
Again, CPS is definitely broke, but they have known that for years and continue to expand certain thus just digging themselves deeper in the hole. I think they should have agreed to the contract, but I don’t think their assessment of the problem is centered on the pie in the sky rhetoric that we often hear being espoused in the public.
- Sue (the other one) - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 10:41 am:
It ain’t over ’til it’s over.
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 10:58 am:
–To Labor all over the state of any stripe; your enemy is within and thy initials are CTU.
They’re acting badly and affecting all of you. Just watch.–
What do you mean?
–At this point, it seems unlikely that a deal is reached before the end of the legislative session.–
There’s an end to legislative sessions?
Come to think of it, is there a beginning to legislative sessions, anymore?
Seven months without a budget. What do “beginning” and “end” mean?
Is there’s a deal, it can be made anytime.
But how is there state money for CPS? The state’s running billions in the red for just FY16.
And I can’t believe that CTU would agree to any concessions that Gov. Rauner would demand for more money.
- Shore - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 11:03 am:
It’s impossible to find sun times columnists on their app. Fix this please.
- RNUG - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 11:06 am:
FWIW, my guess is the CTU committee would agree to the rest of it if they could eliminate the loopholes and out clauses … or at least that is where I would be trying to go with it.
- Robert the Bruce - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 11:14 am:
I hope you are right RNUG.
Extending the baseball analogy too far, I’m having trouble with my scorecard and am quite curious how Rauner’s last offer to AFSCME, and AFSCME’s last offer to Rauner compare to the deal that CTU just turned down.
- Anon404 - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 11:18 am:
Juice, from what I’ve seen of this agreement, I think Lewis has negotiated a solid deal for her members. But her rhetoric, (and Sharkey’s during her absence,) has put the rank-and-file on a war footing. I’m hopeful yesterday was the first step in tapping down the expectations of her membership and a deal can still be reached. I just hope she hasn’t create a monster that she can no longer tame.
- Cathartt Representative - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 11:38 am:
Understand that CTU salaries are such a small part of it and in actual dollars are at 2005 levels. It’s debt, charter proliferation, and the pension non-payments that pose the real challenge. I can understand CTU wanting long term solutions. They’ve given $2 billion to CPS in the last 4 years, CPS wanted another $170 million I give backs this contract, but I’ll forgive the teachers wanting to see long term solutions first.
- Sue - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 11:40 am:
Nothing short of capitulation by CPS will satisfy the membership. Let them do what they think is in their best interest and find out they have little public support
- Century Club - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 11:47 am:
==FWIW, my guess is the CTU committee would agree to the rest of it if they could eliminate the loopholes and out clauses … or at least that is where I would be trying to go with it.==
I agree, and am hopeful that’s the path they’re on, but you can’t trade economic for non-economic considerations if you trust the other party so little that you are sure there is always a back door. I think that’s the leadership Lewis needs to show - getting her committee the best language she can while preparing them to fight back if CPS reneges. It’s not the first union contract that would be signed knowing you have will have to fight to enforce it.
- TinyDancer (formerly Sue the other one) - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 11:55 am:
O.K. I give up.
Changing my nickname.
- Hit or Miss - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 11:58 am:
As I see it, the CTU membership fails to fully understand the magnitude of the financial problems of the CPS. An extreme action such of Chapter 9 cannot be ruled out in the near future of things do not come together soon. If I was in the CTU I would have voted yes for the rejected contract proposal compared to the other options which have any reasonable chance of happening. Someone needs to feel some real financial pain in the near term to correct the current financial position of the CPS. The question is who that will be (CTU members?, bond holders?, tax payers?, or someone else?).
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 12:12 pm:
–An extreme action such of Chapter 9 cannot be ruled out in the near future of things do not come together soon.–
Unless an extreme action such as the governor and General Assembly agreeing to legislation authorizing Chapter 9 filings becomes likely, it can be ruled out indefinitely.
- Harry - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 12:36 pm:
Hmmmmm. $480M structural deficit this year, will grow about 10%/year just about forever, and the Satte is too broke to help. A union representing about 40% of total operating expenses, with which it is impossible to negotiate, and union elections coming up.
Remind me, again, why Rahm wouldn’t welcome the State taking it over.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 12:38 pm:
===Remind me, again, why Rahm wouldn’t welcome the State taking it over. ===
Obviously you haven’t read the bill.
If you had read it, you would know that no additional state money can be used for operations and the state cannot assume any part of CPS’ debt.
- Harry - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 12:40 pm:
Just saw Rich’s response, and sorry for double post, the first one didn’t show up for a while.
So, bad deal all around.
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 1:34 pm:
Didn’t CTU get burned before by agreeing to a deal where CPS had the wiggle room to back out of a pay increase? The devil is in the details. If the paperwork to memorialize a supposed deal has an easy out for the other side, they are right to reject.
- Buzzie - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 2:12 pm:
The 105 day period doesn’t mean there would be a strike immediately at its conclusion. There is absolutely no benefit in striking in the month of May. If there is a strike it would be in the Fall, most likely after the elections.
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 2:50 pm:
–The 105 day period doesn’t mean there would be a strike immediately at its conclusion. There is absolutely no benefit in striking in the month of May.–
Late May, at that, at the earliest, with school out for summer in a few weeks, at the most.
Wouldn’t make sense, at all. For crying out loud, you have no leverage with a strike in the summer!
- Chicago schooler - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 3:14 pm:
CPS also announced its ending its practice of picking up both employer and employee pension contributions. Right now, CPS pays 7% of the 9% legal contribution by employees.
- Carhartt Representative - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 3:23 pm:
=Late May, at that, at the earliest, with school out for summer in a few weeks, at the most.
Wouldn’t make sense, at all. For crying out loud, you have no leverage with a strike in the summer!=
Oh I expect it would be September for sure.
- A guy - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 3:44 pm:
To the update:
“the latest act of war”
OMG, Really? You just get more likable by the word. Ugh.
- Hit or Miss - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 3:53 pm:
===the Chicago Public Schools announced it would be forced to make $100 million in new cuts===
To get its financial house in order by way of cuts only the CPS needs to do more, hundreds of millions of dollars more. A $100 million cut is far too little to solve the financial problem at CPS.
- Rahm's Parking Meter - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 3:55 pm:
The Sun-Times Andy Grimm tweeted this out -
@agrimm34 1h1 hour ago
@ctu pres Karen Lewis: Union will file unfair labor practices complaint, could lead to strike ahead of timeline in contract
If they strike at all, this is political suicide. I can’t see a scenario where striking with Gov. Rauner in office will win them anything!
- TD - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 4:21 pm:
The rhetoric needs to be tapped down on both sides. Let’s have media silence while both sides sit in a room and keep hammering away at a deal.
CPS is ending pension pickup for non-union staff.
- Century Club - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 4:26 pm:
Can someone remind me why the teachers don’t trust CPS? Doesn’t it have something to do with unilaterally altering their contract? Seems far-fetched to me.
- Anon2U - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 4:38 pm:
What Chicago democrat, other than Dunkin, is first to cave to any of the Governors demands once CTU strikes? How long can they keep blaming Rauner for not taking action when they themselves have taken none? Add some $$$ against them in a primary if the strike happens quickly and it gets even more interesting. Strike in the fall and what impact does that have on the general election? CTU fails to understand how much they are helping the Governor here.
I thought last year was weird but this year could take the cake.
- Wensicia - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 4:45 pm:
It’s all downhill from here.
- Politix - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 4:52 pm:
Re Brown’s column: CTU should take a page from Rauner’s playbook on how much to weigh public opinion in their decision making. ZERO. I think the has been vastly underestimated and overrepresented by conservative loudmouths.
- Politix - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 4:53 pm:
*the public
- Sue - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 6:53 pm:
If Karen Lewis is not focused on public opinion- why schedule another worthless rally- too bad it wasn’t scheduled for today! What I don’t understand is why Rahm doesn’t want to seek state approval for a bankruptcy filing. It would be the club he needs and if he could not get a deal- he could let a neutral federal judge with authority to force thru changes and also get the mayor the pension reform he needs. As treasury secretary Paulson said, give me a bazooka and I won’t Need to use it.
- Whatever - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 8:34 pm:
==What I don’t understand is why Rahm doesn’t want to seek state approval for a bankruptcy filing.==
Because, as everyone paying attention learned in the Detroit bankruptcy, municipal bankruptcy hits the bondholders a lot harder than it hits the municipal employees. It could cost him the next election and his invitations to the nicer resorts and clubs.