Comment on "CTU Declares War on Whistle Blowers"

Facts For Working People received this commentary in response to the previous posting about the CTU and Caucus of Rank and File Educators.

 

The article "CTU Declares War on Whistle Blowers" saddens me, but doesn't come as a big surprise. by S Friedman *

 

My uneasiness about the commitment of CTU's CORE (Caucus of Rank and File Educators) leadership to union democracy began with the heavy-handed way they tried to put an end to the 2012 strike after one week, even though the rank and file were still enthusiastic about carrying it on, many demands, including the most important ones about job security for teachers in closing schools, remained unmet, and public support showed no signs of flagging.  The rank and file had shown a heroic level of activism and militancy for a week and, although some planned to take a breather over the weekend, showed no signs of diminished enthusiasm for struggle.  

 

Ashby and Bruno's book, "A Fight for the Soul of Public Education: The Story of the Chicago Teachers Strike," although generally adulatory towards the CORE leadership, lays out the facts.  On Friday, the end of the first week of the strike, the top CORE leaders came out of a negotiating meeting and  told the broader rank and file strike negotiating committee that they had a Tentative Agreement (TA) they wanted to ask the House of Delegates to accept at a meeting that evening.  The rank and file strike committee looked at the TA and the majority voted NOT to recommend it to the House of Delegates.  The leadership plunged ahead with its plan to recommend the Delegates approve it at the meeting, with only the concession that they would be candid that the rank and file committee had rejected it.  

 

The House of Delegates had a hot debate, finally deciding to postpone a vote until they had discussed it with the members they represented at their schools.  So, after the weekend, for two or three more days, there was no return to work.  However, the CORE leadership completely stopped all its strike organizing: no organization of picket lines, no strike bulletin, no rallies.  All they supported was discussion at school sites.  Under those conditions, momentum was lost, morale fell, and the message to the rank and file that the fight was over was clear.  In this context, it was almost inevitable the TA would be accepted for what the CORE leadership presented it as: the best they could get.  The House of Delegates met Wednesday night and voted to end the strike and recommend a "yes" vote by the rank and file.  

 

The 2012 strike took place at the height of the "war on teachers."  The fact that the union made even the modest gains it did, and did not get smashed, can be seen as a victory.  Still, the contract had no language at all to prevent school closings, one of the main issues CORE had organized around even before it ran for office.  When I asked members of ISO (International Socialist Organization - which had members in CORE leadership) at the time about this, their answer was the strike had created "momentum" for a movement that could stop closings.  The unrealistic nature of this is shown by the fact that in the year following the strike the CPS (Chicago Public Schools) closed around 50 schools.  Members of Solidarity, who also had members in CORE leadership didn't have such rose colored glasses; their consensus seemed to be a single teachers local doesn't have the social weight to reverse a federal policy.  And this may indeed be the case, but it also sidestepped the question of whether the CORE leadership had come up short. 

 

Another strange feature of the 2012 strike was that the CORE leadership of CTU chose set its strike deadline immediately after the end of the Democratic Party Convention, even though the school semester began during the Convention.  The close association between Chicago Mayor Emanuel and the DP nominee Obama could have made a strike during the Convention a huge embarrassment to the DP and threatening to strike during the Convention could have given the CTU considerable leverage.  Another close association may explain why the CORE CTU leadership did not do this: American Federation of Teachers (AFT)  President Randi Weingarten, a strong ally of Obama, very likely put the screws on CTU to hold off on striking.  It's not even beyond the realm of possibility she worked out a deal: In exchange for holding off striking until after the DP Convention, CTU could strike for one week without getting attacked by Mayor Emanuel, or the CPS going to court for an injunction, and there even may have been some agreement on the terms of settlement.  This could explain some otherwise puzzling features of how the strike played out: why the CORE leadership was determined to end the strike so suddenly after one week in the absence of clear reasons or new developments, and why Emanuel was silent during the first week of the strike, but when the strike did not end on Friday, went right to court for an injunction.

 

The 2012 strike is also praised for bringing together the interests of teachers with those of students, parents and communities.  It is pretty much a taboo on the left to even raise the question of to what extent the demands on behalf of students, and such developments as the publication of "The Schools Chicago Students Deserve" were genuine priorities or ways of gaining community support.   Legally, the CPS did not have to bargain over these issues, and the CTU was given a great deal of credit for raising them at all, which could have led them into legal problems, since striking over such issues violated state law.  The gains for students in the final settlement, however, were extremely modest.  Given the political context, was this unavoidable?  This brings us back to the question of whether the strike could have continued if the leadership had not been determined to end it, and whether a longer walkout could have led to greater gains, both for teachers and students. 

 

*(S. Friedman is a pseudonym for a U.S public school teacher and union activist)