Courtesy of Mish.
The average teacher in Chicago makes $76,000 a year for nine months of work. They were offered 16% salary increase spread over four years. Given the system has a $665 million deficit this year and a bigger one next year, I am wondering why there should be a raise at all.
Nonetheless, the New York Times reports With No Contract Deal by Deadline in Chicago, Teachers Will Strike.
“We do not want a strike,” David J. Vitale, president of the Chicago Board of Education, said late Sunday as he left the negotiations, which he described as extraordinarily difficult and “perhaps the most unbelievable process that I’ve ever been through.”
Union leaders said they had hoped not to walk away from their jobs, but they said they were left with little choice.
“This is a difficult decision and one we hoped we could have avoided,” said Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union.
The political stakes now may be highest for Rahm Emanuel, the Democratic mayor in a city with deep union roots. He took office last year holding up the improvement of public schools as one of his top priorities, but now faces arduous political terrain certain to accompany Chicago’s first public schools strike in 25 years.
Late Sunday, Mr. Emanuel told reporters that school district officials had presented a strong offer to the union, including what some officials described as what would amount to a 16 percent raise for many teachers over four years — and that only two minor issues remained. “This is totally unnecessary, it’s avoidable and our kids do not deserve this,” Mr. Emanuel said, describing the decision as “a strike of choice.”
Strike of Choice
Every strike is a strike of choice. Moreover, given projected budget deficits and with pension plans even deeper in the hole, the 16% raise offer was actually far too generous.
The ideal approach by mayor Rahm Emanuel would look something like this.
- Immediately fire all 25,000 teachers, disband the union, and kill defined benefit pension plans
- Offer teachers their jobs back with a zero percent pay raise with three days to decide
- For each day beyond three, the city would reduce its offer to teachers by $2,000 a day
- Offer generous relocation expenses to those willing to come to Chicago to teach
- Offer substitute teachers full-time jobs
It is time to break the back of the insidious grip public unions have on the state of Illinois. There is no better place than Chicago to start.
Illinois Policy Center Response
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