Nearly 30,000 public school teachers and support staff represented by the Chicago Teachers Union have vowed to walk off the job starting at 12:01 a.m. (0401 GMT) on Monday if an impasse in contract talks is not broken. It would be the first teachers’ strike in Chicago in 25 years.
So 30,000 teachers are ready to strike, for money and not for “caring about the students” as so many union defenders try to spin when they defend union practices. But how are teachers doing relative to the average worker in the US. Well…
The National average wage in the US is $42,000 and… The average teacher salary in the US is between $41,000-$44,000 but… A Chicago Public Schools spokesperson said average pay for teachers, without benefits, is $76,000.
So, currently these teachers are making lots more money than the average US worker… more than the average teacher. But that’s not enough. No, they want more.
The union has said it wants more than the 8 percent pay raise over four years that Chicago offered. The school district says it cannot afford concessions as it is running a large budget deficit and major credit rating agencies have downgraded its debt rating.
So, the city of Chicago’s bond rating is in serious jeopardy due to rising costs and the teachers don’t really care, they want a raise. A raise in this terrible economy where 12,500,000 Americans can’t find any jobs, never mind making $75,000.
So who’s the bad guy who’s trying to fight these teachers… Big Bad Democrat Rahm Emanuel. See, party doesn’t matter when workers are demanding too much money so your budget can’t afford it.
Emanuel, a tough negotiator called a bully by the teachers’ union, wants to close schools, expand non-union charter schools, and let corporations and philanthropies run some schools. He also wants principals to be able to hire whom they want, and wants to use standardized test results to evaluate teachers.
So do you think the teachers should get a raise? Is this another case of unions just trying to create the best environment for the Chicago students? Or is this just unions doing their typical bullying of tax payers, even though they’re already doing quite well. I hope Rahm holds his ground and I hope Chicago residents remember how these teachers are holding a gun to their heads and screwing them. They are going to screw the very kids they claim to care so much about.
I note that you don’t offer a cite for your quotes.
Multiple sites like this report that average teacher salary in Chicago is $50,098 — dramatically different from the unsourced number you quote. According to the above resource, the average salary for teachers in New York City, San Francisco, and Boston is $79,028, $77,954, and $64,982 respectively.
The issue here is not about unions, it is instead about how badly we underpay educators. You cite the “National average wage”, and ignore that teachers must have at least an MSE in most states. What is the average wage of workers of with a master’s degree? How do the wages of an MSE compare to, for example, an MBA?
I also note that you neglect to mention the demand of the City of Chicago that the teachers accept a 90 minute lengthening of the school day, while slashing the cost-of-living increase contained in their expiring contract.
This entire post is a useless anti-labor diatribe filled with false, incomplete and misleading information.
“Oh Heavens, JohnD’s saying something bad about unions, I must go defend them regardless of the situation…”.
You want cites (are we back to requiring cites?). But here’s the CBS story about what the teachers make now.I realize you will completely dismiss anything from the story since it doesn’t support your comments but what the hey… Here’s the cite for the comments about Rahm from Rueters. And here’s the cite for National teacher salaries at pay scale.com Here’s a cite which has every state broken out which looks to be fairly comprehensive. Although I’d guess you could find any data you want to support your argument since people are spinning this number depending on whether they are trying to make salaries look high or low.
We do not underpay educators, that’s totally freaking insane! Even if I used bullshit numbers like you propose, they make damn good money for working 9 months. Masters in Education, big deal. Those who can do, those who can’t teach! No heavy lifting, total job security, pensions… you also neglected to mention the awesome benefits they get.
Your response is useless and is a symptom of the very problem our education system is suffering from and people like you are to blame. One thing I have commented on here where I gave credit to Obama was his pragmatic stance in support of Arny Duncan to reform education by getting rid of bad teachers against the will of the teacher’s unions, supporting Charter schools and hopefully getting to school choice going beyond public schools including vouchers. That would send a shock wave up the asses of the education establishment AND would finally improve education. Oh wait, I’m sure you have a plan to improve education… pay teachers more money and hope for the best!
Chicago Tribune, Tom.
By “regular people,” John means “ignorant,” or in his case, hostile.
Teachers ability to strike in Illinois was curtailed by a Stand for Children power play: teachers could only strike if they had a 90% vote by the membership, a truly difficult hurdle. The fact that they were able to achieve that vote is remarkable, and reflective of the degree to which they’ve been pushed.
The issues are a good example of how teachers’ work environment is students’ learning environment. They involve the use of test scores and teacher evaluations, which really aren’t worth discussing with the post.
by regular people I mean just that, average citizens who are fed up with a sucky education system which processes students and produces people who cannot compete. Do you know why Wisconsin voters chose to fight unions, because they’re sick of excuses. Americans are sick of unions caring about teachers instead of educating students.
Why didn’t the AFT (American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts) fight the bill which will modify the teacher’s seniority role? Beuase people have had it and a ballot question would have gone even deeper and had broad support. We want more value from our teachers at their current high rates. Those are the regular people I refer to.
I can’t explain the AFT’s position. I know the MTA’s reasoning.
The MTA had two choices: 1) wait for the court case to decide whether the petition met the legal criteria 2) fight the ballot question. As Stand for Children demonstrated in Illinois, they can easily outspend us. Their initiative was so complicated that it would be a war of soundbites in which money and simplicity would win as it did with the bilingual education ballot question from years ago.
The state, with the cooperation of teacher unions, had just implemented a sweeping change in teacher evaluation.
Stand for Children had a seat at the table. They contributed nothing and then ignored the state’s work and created their own ballot question to do their agenda. Fairness doesn’t count for much. We negotiated for new legislation because there was too much to lose. The AFT might have fought it, but the MTA negotiated it. They lacked enough support to do so.
Regular person, average person, they are both logical fallacies. There are no such people. What makes them average? I think you mean people without an agenda. But what they are is ignorant. Not stupid, just not well-informed about the issues. They make decisions based on whatever ideology happens to dominate.
You are an enthusiastic supporter of that ideology, and your ignorance on the role of your ignorance on education shines through. I don’t mean to say you’re stupid. You’re not. I also don’t think you’re disingenuous. By ignorant, I mean that you have no idea what the union side of the argument is. No idea. All you have is your own caricature of the union position. Any arguments contrary will only support your anti-union stance.
I know. I appreciate you thinking anyone not involved is ignorant. I think many people believe that average people (those without agendas) are ignorant, but I think you have to give people more credit. It’s easy to say people were ignorant or uninformed when you lose your vote, your cause or whatever but I think you have to admit that sometimes you are just wrong and people know the facts but just disagree.
Sometimes you’re wrong. Sometimes neither of us can produce conclusive evidence. I’m not saying anyone not involved is ignorant, teachers can and are often as ignorant as the general public. It’s not a matter of self-interest or losing. We negotiated because our side of the issue was too complex to argue. That doesn’t mean people would have sided with us if they could have made a completely informed decision.
I’ve actually studied this education stuff. Read copious of research on this stuff. I went to grad school and do a lot of reading on my own. I don’t expect everyone else to have done so. It’s not feasible.
Here’s my problem: your argument is ideological. It has enough of a connection to reality to justify its prejudices. Half of it has been kicking around since the 1940s: American education sucks. The other half has been steadily on the rise since the 1980s–teacher unions interfere with educational improvement.
The ignorance I object to is this that people have no idea of the argument for teachers unions. If teacher unions were just about teachers, I’d agree with you. But teachers unions are also good for students. All the time? No. Most of the time? Maybe. Much of the time? Yes. Most of the time, unions have either a positive or neutral effect on the education of our students. My problem isn’t that the regular, average person doesn’t agree with this. It’s that they don’t even know the argument for it.
CEO’s?
Happy days.
Maybe they should go on strike like teachers and shut down companies. Maybe the ghost of Ronald Reagan will fire all the striking teachers and we could hire new ones. There are certainly a lot of them ion the 12,500,000+++ people who are unemployed, including recent grads with MSEs.
…
When Mitt Romney and Bain Capital came along, GST was $376 million in debt, making a product that was costing US manufacturers more to make than they could sell it for, and facing new EPA regulations and international competition that had the entire US Steel industry on the ropes. The company was 3 months from bankruptcy and the workers there were 3 months from unemployment.
“Bain looked at the company and decided they could save it. OOOPS! That assumption had to have imagined that the workers at this plant wanted their jobs saved. It must have assumed that for the workers, a job was better than no job. Huge mistake! When Bain capital went to these union employees with the balance sheets, showed them in no uncertain terms that the company was losing money and headed for closure, and showed them that they could all save their jobs by taking less money, the workers flatly refused (we aren’t sure whether the workers actually had a say in this refusal or if the union just flatly refused for them). Bain invested another $250 million to upgrade equipment (the equipment that they replaced is the equipment that the video claims fell into disrepair and that Bain stopped maintaining). They guessed that with the newer, more efficient equipment, they still had a chance of turning this around. With the $250 million, they also bought some other smaller steel works and merged them with GST, hoping to save the company by expanding product line. When this didn’t work (due to continued stress on the US Steel industry as whole and the continuing high demands of the union) Bain decided it was time to trim the payroll. Now, any business owner knows that the most controllable cost of doing business is payroll, and most go there first for cuts.
After several alternative attempts to bring GST under control and make it profitable, Bain finally had to go there. However, they went there by offering to buy out anyone who would volunteer for early retirement. Nobody took. When GST management implemented some austerity measures to try to save the company (and some jobs) a 10 week strike ensued. So, eventually, Bain washed their hands and walked away from their GST investment. This is Bain’s fault?”
There you have, truth be told.
Romney and Bain made millions from a steel plant that went bankrupt after Bain dramatically increased the company’s debt. Workers lost their jobs and promised health and retirement benefits. Because Bain underfunded the company’s pension fund, a federal agency was needed for a $44 million bail out. Here is why:
In 1993, Romney’s Bain Capital purchased a steel company and renamed it GS Technologies. To gain control of the company, Bain put up $8 million and quickly had the company take on new debt in order to distribute dividends back to Bain and cover new expenses – helping Bain earn back part of its initial investment.
In 1995, Romney’s Bain had GS acquire another firm, adding over a hundred million in new debt. By then, Bain had forced the company to hold $378 million in debt, which was ten times the annual income of the company and “the company was not on a sustainable course.”
At the same time, Romney’s firm was ordering changes that undermined safety and productivity at the company and installing people who knew little about the steel industry. A worker remarked, “When Romney and Bain came in, it was painfully obvious that they didn’t have a clue about anything to do with a steel mill.”
From 1997 to 1999, losses at the company increased by 300% and it was clear the company could not survive.
By the time the company legally filed for bankruptcy, Romney and his firm had made at least $9 million in profit. Former company officials said the mill, which had been operating since 1888, could have dealt better with market fluctuations if Bain had not forced the company to take on unsustainable debt. A finance professor remarked that using debt to pay large dividends to Bain left the company less prepared for a downturn.
Because Romney’s firm had forced the company to take on hundreds of millions in debt to pay themselves and finance acquisitions, ultimately leading it towards bankruptcy, “GS said it was shedding the guarantees it had promised its workers in the event of a plant closure – the severance pay, health insurance, life insurance and pension supplements that had been negotiated during the 1997 strike.”
Additionally, “records show that the mill’s Bain-backed management was confronted several times about the fund’s shortfall, which, in the end, required an infusion of funds from the federal Pension Benefits Guarantee Corp.” A federal government agency had to spend $44 million to bail out the pension plan that had been underfunded by Bain.
Reuters called GS one of Bain’s “profitable failures” and a former worker who saw the demise of the plant firsthand said, “Every promise they made was broken. Every promise. Except the fact that they did make a lot of money off of it. They kept that one.”
1. Did Bain invest $250 million in equipment upgrades?
2. Did the unions refuse to save the company by taking concessions? I mean, who do they think they are, the UAW or public sector unions?
1) The amount spent to upgrade equipment was 98 million, not 250 and it was borrowed from banks and added to the company’s debt. It was not “invested” by Bain.
2) No concessions by the unions would have saved the company, once Bain saddled it with excessive debt and inexperienced managers who did not know how to run a steel plant, so there is not much point in debating how much the unions should have conceded.
The point of the exercise, like all too many leveraged buyouts, was to force the prey to borrow an ENORMOUS sum of money in order to pay the obscene “management fees” that Bain collected. Once Bain made their handsome profits, they were perfectly happy to suck the rest of the value out of the company and leave it quivering in its death-throes. Meanwhile, they of course happily shifted the pension obligations to the taxpayer — taking advantage of the PBGC protection provided by the taxpayers.
There was nothing honorable or even defensible about Bain’s treatment of GST.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but my guess is that Bain borrowed the money to pay for equipment upgrades, and then added the $250 million to the company debt. Along with the money borrowed to pay the management fees that Bain collected, which was also typically added to the company debt. Oh and the money that Bain used to buy the company–that was typically borrowed and added to the company debt.
Should they have put a lien on Mitt’s house? How about against the public pension funds that invested in Bain. Or the endowment funds who invested with Bain?
Glad to know they actually did modernize the plant to try to make a go of it. And the thanks they get is guff from former employees who refused to cooperate. Bain should of pulled the plug long before they did.
Glad to be back…thanks
killed the steel industry.
BTW: GST total debt when they filed for bankruptcy was $554 million. Only in America…
which the Steel union drove through the roof. How many ships come to Boston compared to years ago. Thanks to the union dock workers and stevedores.
why you are wrong:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/the-container-crisis-shipping-industry-fights-for-survival-a-641513.html
BTW: What’s a stevedore? 🙂
Stevedore – a person employed, or a contractor engaged, at a dock to load and unload cargo from ships
.
That the Steel union drove wages through the roof is undoubtably true…
… If you consider that the wages were sunk in a well dug in the basement to begin with.
Going to foreign shores for labor costs is, more or less, admitting you like legally sanctioned exploitation of workers. It’s also admitting that, should we turn the clock back on unions and, once again, legally sanction exploitation of workers here, ‘job craters’ will gladly do so, in a heartbeat and without a second thought.
Post WW2 global reconstruction also brought “foreign” steel into the global (read: U.S.) markets. For someone who believes that free markets are as natural as sunshine, I would think John would know this.
Fuddy-duddy ownership allowed plant and equipment to become antiquated and the unfounded belief that they had a lock on US markets. They were a lot like those captains of ocean liners and generals who made cars with fins who were heard to utter the phrase “we’re unsinkable damnit!” all the way to the bottom.
Would you go along with a plan from your boss to lengthen your work week by 30%, while breaking every deal you’d made with him/her?
Yes? You’re stupid or a liar.
No? Okay, you fit right into the CTU.
So I’ve got a great job (good benefits, great pay, security, pension and no heavy lifting) and the Mayor says the budget is trashed and we all have to give a little. I understand I only work 9-10 months, 6-7 hours a day… but these are hard times and layoffs will be a serious consideration since the bond rating of the city is in peril. They want us to work almost 8 hours a day, like normal average American workers… yes I would bitch and moan a little since I may have to miss my afternoon workout but I’ll do it.
I don’t know where you work but in the private sector, things like this happen all the time. Usually there are ten people in line waiting for you to quit and would be only too happy to take that job, 90 minutes more work a day and all, and be whistling Dixie out their asses!
After all, what can they do about it? Get another job? In this economy? Oh sure. Hell we can replace teachers with firearms instructors, everyone knows that learning to defend yourself against Liberals in black helicopters is way more important than so-called “math” and “science”, neither of which are in God’s Bible anyway.
And we’ll give their pension fund to Bain, this election cycle’s been traumatic for them.
Did you know that we had a four-day work week before unions were invented? And there was no such thing as psoriasis, balding, or hangnail up to that time?
We can use the money we save to cut taxes on the wealthiest. If we cut them a little more, *this* time they’ll really create jobs. No really. Seriously. Stop laughing, dammit. Oh fuck you.
Tomorrow, I’ll register as a Republican, I think I’ve got this figgered out. Or I’ll wake up really, really hung over amd remain an FDR Democrat.
… well played, sir. Drink plenty of water to help with the hangover.
Water’s fluoridated, violating the natural constitutional rights of the plaque bacteria in my mouth. Also, I understand that fish often fornicate in water, premaritally.
I’ll stick to kool-aid.
This is a very complicated issue and has a lot more to do with local politics. I have friends in both camps and there is a lot of misinformation on these pages.
1)Pay-the average is far lower than the 76k JohnD suggesed, Tribune calculated it as closer to 53k, and plenty of my clients (I work at a bankruptcy firm) are teachers struggling to get by. Chicago rent, food, and 10.25% tax on everything makes the cost of living nearly impossible. Even after two raises I am still nearly living paycheck to paycheck. Friends in CPS without tenure have demanding schedules and make less than I do, some barely hitting the 30k mark which is where you stay the first 3-4 years and is why CPS has such a bad retention rate.
2) What the contract entails
The biggest beef is not over the raises but the hours. The Mayor, wisely in my view, is expanding hours from 6 to 8 classroom hours a day, the teachers will be doing 11% more work with the equivalent of 2% more raise. The union was dumb in my view for opposing the new hours, and the Mayor is dumb for not making the raise commensurate with the increased workload. They also dont like the arbitrary firing process, if a school tests badly ALL teachers and principals are fired regardless of ability or responsibility. This kind of environment makes it impossible for teachers to do their jobs well. He also has ZERO proposals for increased support staff or improving public safety in schools. We have 2-3 Columbine levels of school shooting casualties every year and its only getting worse. As a CPS tutor I had to go through an extensive background check and metal detector to even get in the building, and CPS largely treated these kids like herded animals with spirits to break instead of minds meant to be opened.
3) Poverty is the Elephant in the Room
a)The union v charter fight is a giant canard that distracts from the real problem. There is just no way kids in gut wrenching poverty, whose working poor parents have no free time or education themselves can learn equivalent to their suburban peers in better funded districts. Diane Ravitch wrote a book attacking the anti-union pro test ethos in both parties and proposing a Finnish model that fully funds school and utilizes it to deliver social services as well. Problem with Finland is racial and socioeconomic homogenity makes it a bad best practice to follow. But were we to tackle poverty as part of a wider strategy of rebuilding ravaged communities and centering them around their schools we could make a real tent. Both sides of the debate love Geoffrey Canada who on the one hand has charters (and a good track record of working with unions actually) but also created a community that put the interests of children first and provides for the medical care, teaching parental involvement, day care, and social services needed to allow kids to work. Public boarding schools, where kids get three squares, a nice place to sleep, and supervision that monitors whether they do homework at night have also been quite successful.
b) The other big problem is we fund schools primarily through local property taxes and have elected school committees set curricula. When we cant have equal funding or even agree on evolution its no wonder all our kids are not on the same page. Funding education equally across districts will give poorer areas more federal aid to boost standards and utilize government to increase parental involvement and control over the schools. Rahms local control idea, letting parents in shitty districts choose to get the schools overhauled and control them is a neat hybrid of Ravitch’s ideas and Rheas but would need significant oversight to work.
4) Economics does not equal Pedagogy
a) Rhea, Duncan, the prior CPS CEO Huberman and the current CPS CEO are all MBAs with ZERO education experience. If we actually put EDUCATORS in charge they might make a big difference, much like Payzant in Boston or Mark Roosevelt in Pittsburgh.
b) But education is not a commodity to be bought and sold and used up to make more money-even if thats how both parties view it now. Its about building critical thinking schools, smart and curious students, and inducing character and citizenship as an ideal. My generation, as David Brooks and others pointed out is good at beating the test and getting into schools and bad at actually learning ethically (look at the MASSIVE cheating scandal at Harvard the ends always outweigh the means)-this mentality that views education as a ticket to a job is killing our schools.
It is a lifelong love of learning and a devotion to self improvement-and all the countries that kick our asses at education value teachers the way we value businessmen and lawyers and doctors. They value them as people that give back to their community. My friends at Teach for America or who teach in Texas tell me how awful it is since they have no training and no union to protect them from abusive administrators, parents and students.
Yet thats the model Obama and Bush and Rhea all want to adopt. Karen Lewis is can be an idiot and views the union as a means of exerting political power rather than the key to reform it is. She and Rahm are far too stubborn to resolve this fairly. The CPS teachers have to be in the classroom more and have to have more support-they should not act as adversaries but partners. But so long as the ”reformers’ blame the unions first the reforms are not going to happen since the unions will fight tooth and nail-even against the sensible reforms. For the sake of the kids I hope Lewis and Rahm put ego aside and let common sense prevail.
We are going to be seeing a lot more Mayors embrace the anti-union agenda since thats where they think the results are. But poverty is the greatest barrier to educational success-not teachers and until we realize it progressives are doomed to continue circular firing squads like this one.
Great information that presents everything JohnD left out. Put those hours into weeks, and you get about two and a half weeks added to the teachers work year without and a pay increase pays for two more days.
What the Chicago teachers know and the Rahm and his Chicago cronies don’t understand is that our working conditions are their learning conditions.
I didn’t fucking know any of it since I don’t work in the CPS system! Or as you would phrase it, “I left it out”.
Great info from jconway, BTW, the $76K I “suggested” is what I read in the Tribune article from a school official. Maybe I can find the real number from some unbiased source.
Watch for this trend to continue. AS for funding, I have a hard time correlating the “funding to problems” since the city schools like Chicago spend tons of money now. Somerville – $17,277/student, Boston – $16,257, Chelsea – $13,074… Scituate – $8,939, North Reading – $8,527 and Abington – $8,350. I looks like if we did level funding, the “richer” communities would get more money while the “poorer” ones would lose money.
and no one has mentioned that salary is among the LESSER issues in the Chicago situation?
Has anyone here really followed what’s going on in Chicago?
The CTU has made curricular and class size issues that are causing Rahm to show his true colors.
Language preventing class sizes of 53 is offensive exactly HOW? Ensuring, in the age of test idiocy, that there are actually art and music, and other “unnecessary” classes taught to America’s urban kids is offensive exactly HOW?
Read my post I tackled this issue and the local control and
Restructuring issues.
at the beginning that this was the wrong post. JohnD provided us with a decontextualized story to channel anti-union ideology.
Our working conditions, as you know, are students learning conditions.
Rahm Emanuel is a new breed of Democrat who is liberal enough on social issues and conservative on economic and fiscal issues. He’s also a prick. Andrew Cuomo is another.
Who will you guys be attacking next…
This me, not us guys. You can call me out specifically, though you’re not making any sense here. I’ve been consistently critical of Obama, particularly on education policy where he is more radical than any previous administration. I”ve mentioned my dislike for Andrew Cuomo–as opposed to his father–before. Rahmbo is cut from the same mold. I don’t know anything about Duncan’s personality, but his and Obama’s education policy is more extreme that Bush’s.
As far as your post goes, you excerpted a news article and interspersed it with your political opinions. You didn’t know what you were talking about. You could easily have looked at the Chicago Teacher’s Union site to check the media’s coverage and see its stance and the issues. You didn’t have to agree with it or even trust it. Instead you provided a news article on top of steaming pile of ideology.
… set of links that would summarize the problems with Cuomo? I heard buzz during the convention that he may be running. I seriously wanted his dad to run in 92, so my uninformed instinct is to like the guy. Could you give me the other perspective.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/28/988852/-What-Every-Progressive-Should-Know-About-Andrew-Cuomo-Before-Jumping-on-the-16-Bandwagon
n/t
radio a lot. He first came to my attention when he imposed a curfew on state-owned land to prevent Occupy protesters from camping out. I would seriously consider not voting for him if he were nominated. He’s a breed of Democrat that differs from Republicans on social issues, but not so much on economics. He’s also a Democratic Chris Christie.
today
But this strike is “all about the children…” bleak.
How does Obama feel about this? Can’t you picture him calling Rahm… “this looks bad, just settle it, we’ll send more Fed money to cover the raises…”
We’ll all be Bained into the subsistance-wage caste.
Hopefully more Americans will wake up and realize that organizing is the only way that’s been proven to hold the Predator Class at bay.
…shouldn’t we take into account the cost of living in and around Chicago? Cities tend to be expensive and I’m guessing Chicago is no exception. Part of me feels that teachers should be approaching doctor/lawyer territory as they are also trained professionals that have a profound impact on the well-being of our society. High five-figures is definitely reasonable, and to those who say they don’t work a full year I say that’s why I’m not pushing for six figures. Plus professional athletes don’t work a full year and don’t need a college degree yet they get paid obscene amounts.
Why is it that the market can do no wrong according to some until the labor side of the market uses their leverage then all of a sudden the attitude is, “How dare you!”? Actions like this show how much they are worth to the city. The only people who should not be allowed to strike IMO are fire, police, and medical, but even then how much is it worth to keep them on the job. If we don’t want people to strike, we have to TREAT them like we don’t want them to strike.