Must-see CPS strike videos
Friday, Oct 25, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Labor strikes are serious business, but it’s important that striking workers try to keep morale as high as they can. Most strikers just shout chants on the picket lines, but the CTU has taken this to a whole other level. My personal favorite…
YouTube version is here.
* I’m wondering what Chance thinks about this…
* No response yet from Carly Rae…
* Nice cover of a great song…
* But not all of the strike videos are about fun. Some contain serious messages…
* And the unions themselves have produced professional videos to support their cause. Here’s one…
…Adding… Unforced error…
A group of 30 Chicago Public Schools athletes and students arrived at City Hall to speak with Mayor Lori Lightfoot shortly after noon on Friday.
The group, led by Simeon football players, announced its intention to show up on Wednesday. They wanted to voice their frustration over the impact the Chicago Teachers Union strike is having on CPS students and athletes.
Lightfoot left City Hall just minutes before they arrived.
“I think she’s afraid,” Simeon senior Khalyl Warren said. “She is showing fear. But it is ok. We assumed she would be here to say a couple words, say something that we wanted to hear. Something for our teachers, something for us. But if she walked away, she walked away.”
And…
A Cook County judge will rule later Friday about whether Jones College Prep cross country teams can participate in a state regional event this weekend.
The case has broad implications for other Chicago Public Schools students who also want to compete in state meets while their teachers and coaches are on strike.
About 100 students attended the hearing at the Daley Center on a complaint filed Thursday by 14 parents of the cross country students against the Illinois High School Association and the Chicago Board of Education that seeks a temporary restraining order to allow the athletes to compete in the state playoff events during the strike, including Saturday morning’s cross country regionals.
Judge Eve M. Reilly said she would issue her decision by 5 p.m.
- Lester Holt’s Mustache - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 1:06 pm:
It’ll really kick off Monday, when trump will be in town to speak to police chiefs. I’ve got a feeling CPS will get a one-day reprieve as the target of CTU anger
- Grandson of Man - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 1:07 pm:
Now that’s the way to strike, to dance, and the Halloween theme.
Super-privileged anti-union interests would be pretty unhappy about it, to feed into the manufactured outrage.
- I'll say it again - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 1:07 pm:
Teachers are fun, creative and giving people.
The CTU leadership… ahem, not so much.
- The Big Salad - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 1:11 pm:
Nope. Not watching.
Spent some time with a CPS mom this morning, and I can tell you it’s not the morale of the teachers that concerns me right now.
- Steve - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 1:16 pm:
Even on strike , the teachers are thinking of the children while performing. They are pretty darn good.
- Ok - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 1:19 pm:
I do support the teachers, but this is probably a core of the problem with perceptions of them going up against strong black female leaders in mayor’s office and CPS:
Teacher Racial Breakdowns
African-American: 20.7%
Asian: 3.9%
Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.0%
Hispanic: 21.2%
Native American: 0.4%
White: 50.4%
Multi-Racial: 1.5%
Unknown: 1.9%
Total Teachers: 21,334
- Montrose - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 1:25 pm:
I just keep thinking with the Thriller video that all the students that see it will think, “That’s neat. Did they make that song and dance up?”
- Responsa - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 1:44 pm:
This strike is going on too long and the balance is slowly, subtly, shifting away from the union. Perceptions are changing especially as parents and friends focus on the increasing lost days of schooling and the publicity over damage to individual athletes and athletic teams this prolonged strike is causing.
- Montrose - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 1:51 pm:
“This strike is going on too long and the balance is slowly, subtly, shifting away from the union. Perceptions are changing especially as parents and friends focus on the increasing lost days of schooling and the publicity over damage to individual athletes and athletic teams this prolonged strike is causing.”
Has any polling been done to test whether this hunch holds any water?
- Anonymous - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 1:58 pm:
Not sure if a tribute to Thriller by pedophile Michael Jackson is the best choice for a musical performance by striking teachers given that the Chicago Teachers Union failed to participate in a major study aimed at protecting students from sexual violence.
- NIref - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 2:06 pm:
No Pete Seeger or Billy Bragg?
- Peters Piece - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 2:07 pm:
Great Stuff. These are the Staff walking the picket lines not the Union negotiators. Really good way to get your message across vs civil disobedience. Hope this attitude transfers into the negotiating room. Agree that Chicago is going to be a unique perfect storm on Monday.
- Shemp - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 2:08 pm:
C’mon. Let the kids play while the adults fight it out.
- @misterjayem - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 2:15 pm:
To a kid today, the 1983 “Thriller” video is as historically remote as “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” from Disney’s Song of the South would have been to a kid in 1983.
Yikes.
Now if you need me, I’ll sitting in the dark doing Geritol shots.
– MrJM
- Lakeview - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 2:41 pm:
Everyone is worried that students have been out 7 days - they were recently out 91 days and no one no one worried about them
- AUSTINMAN - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 2:42 pm:
I support the strike simply because no teacher aide should have to work a second job just to survive, and we expect them to be ready every school day to help our kids learn. Give this guy a raise and i dont care if my taxes go up to do it bcz just like him I am a lifelong Chicagoan and product of CPS
- Alex Ander - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 2:55 pm:
When picketing gets boring. LOL
- Earnest - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 3:05 pm:
>To a kid today, the 1983 “Thriller” video is as historically remote as “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” from Disney’s Song of the South would have been to a kid in 1983.
Ouch. At lunch today I made a Spirograph joke and no one laughed. I’m almost sure it’s because no one was old enough to know what they were.
- Moe Berg - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 3:14 pm:
Team Lightfoot has a knack for unforced errors and interacting with CPS students. Fran Spielman tweet on 10/15:
Lucas Tobin-Trumm, 9, tried to hand-deliver a letter of support for the teachers strike to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office. But, when staffers refused to accept it, she folded it into a paper airplane and air-mailed it.
- CPS School Mom - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 3:40 pm:
So happy to see the teachers having fun my while child is missing school for the 7th day (with no end in sight) and we struggle with child care.
- BeenThere - Friday, Oct 25, 19 @ 3:53 pm:
Are we allowed to support the teachers and not the union?