CTU Strike Is A Political Circus With No Road To A Contract Deal

Let’s face it, the Chicago Teachers Union Strike has devolved into parody of the 2012 walkout and a political circus fueled by the cult of personality. So much sound and fury, with no path to a deal.

It’s baffling that teachers continue to sacrifice their paychecks to stand behind CTU leadership’s claim that an all-or-nothing job action is still the only way to solve Chicago Public Schools’ overcrowded classrooms and lack of librarians and nurses at some schools.

Anybody who has been paying attention to Chicago politics knows that the CTU strike always has been a premeditated, thinly veiled power play perpetrated by CTU bosses who wasted about $500,000 in rank-and-file union dues backing the wrong candidate for mayor, Cook County Democratic Party boss Toni Preckwinkle.

CTU leaders who lost that big bet are fighting to regain relevancy, maybe even launch their own political party, and certainly to use the picket line as a platform to raise their personal profile.

It’s all happening right before our eyes.

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Did you see the fluffy profile of CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates in the Chicago Federation of Labor-owned Sun-Times just before she got appointed executive vice president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers?

That’s right, in the middle of a teachers strike, Davis Gates' biggest accomplishment has been getting promoted to a cushy union job over her boss, CTU President Jesse Sharkey.

When have you heard of labor union turning down the biggest pay hike it's ever been offered? They got more than they asked for — 16 percent — which adds up to a nearly 25 percent salary bump when you factor in annual cost-of-living increases over 5 years. It’s a bigger salary hike than teachers accepted this year in New York City and in Oakland, California.

Of course, CTU leaders say, their fight for a fair contract isn’t about money. They’re battling for what’s best for the kids because that’s what teachers are all about. It’s such a great social justice story line, one that I would wholeheartedly endorse, if it wasn’t a lie.

What’s closer to the truth is that CTU leadership has turned contract negotiations into a political action. Why else would one of their top sticking points be a demand for a shorter contract term, one that expires before the next mayoral election?

Ask CTU leaders to explain their apparent absence of urgency, attendance at the bargaining table and a counter proposal to the City Hall contract offer and they counter by saying “we’ve been at this for 10 months,” when Rahm Emanuel was still mayor.

Sharkey and Davis Gates dodge questions, tell lies and even cry racism over typos to deflect criticism and grab headlines.

“Rich white men tell black women with children in the Chicago Public Schools what to do all the time," Davis Gates said after her name was misspelled in a note from a Lightfoot attorney asking CTU leadership to spend more time bargaining and less time protesting.

“So pay attention to what’s being said here," Davis Gates told the Tribune. Sharkey’s "name is spelled right. There’s something to this. The city has a legacy, a culture, of putting black women in the position where life is harder, where they have to be silenced, to take the backseat, and this is an element of it.”

They’re warring against City Hall ghosts. Mayor Richard M. Daley is retired. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is an investment banker and part-time fake journalist. James Franzcek, the CPS lawyer whose name was on a note that misspelled Davis Gates’ name, now takes orders from and delivers messages for the current mayor, a fellow black woman who voters picked to change things.

What’s even more preposterous is that Sharkey and Davis Gates continue to sling election-season slurs at Lightfoot, including the R-word. “Rahm,” that is.

Like the CTU leadership’s decision to devote time to civil disobedience training and taking selfies with Elizabeth Warren on the picket line rather than figuring out the best way to get rank-and-file teachers back to work, none of this phony rhetoric passes the smell test.

Maybe that doesn’t matter to CTU bosses. After all, to be the “tip of the spear” social justice heroes they desperately what to be, they need a scoundrel to defeat.

But their attempt to cast Lightfoot as a villain just doesn’t ring true. Lightfoot isn’t a Rahm clone or a party boss like Preckwinkle.

In Lightfoot’s first few months in office, the political outsider has shown herself to be a fiscally responsible, reform-minded mayor committed to disrupting the Democratic Machine status quo, fighting City Hall corruption and building equity in a city rigged against people living in poor, forgotten neighborhoods.

So many things about CTU’s phony bluster and us-against-them showboating for the national news falls flat while students miss school and state playoff games, and so many working-class parents struggle to pick up an unexpected child care tab.

The whole thing would be absurd if it wasn’t happening in Chicago, where an undercurrent of race politics taints everything.

Even CTU’s preferred strike-demand hashtag — #putitinwriting — has a dog-whistle ring to it.

In April, 73 percent of Chicagoan voters rejected the CTU’s political status quo candidate to elect Lightfoot, a black, lesbian reformer charged with managing Chicago’s 90 percent minority school district. They gave Lightfoot four years to make Chicago — including its schools— safer, more nurturing and equitable places to call home.

But here we are, six months later, and a labor organization of rank-and-file teachers who are mostly white women and lead by Sharkey — a white socialist union boss who lives like America’s wealthiest 1 percent and drives a non-union made Tesla — have walked out on 300,000 students because they don’t trust Chicago’s new African American mayor (who agrees with them on most points except for how to pay for them) to keep her word.

CTU’s biggest, most vocal supporters seem to be white moms from affluent pockets of the North Side. Three white Democrats running for president — Joe Biden, Sanders and Warren — have used the CTU strike as free campaign advertising. Would those Democrats text, tweet and walk picket lines if powerful white men — former mayors Emanuel and Daley — were still in office? Hell no.

The last time Chicago elected an African American reform mayor, the CTU went on strike three times. They never walked the picket line against former Mayor Richard M. Daley. They battled Rahm over money and, for the most part, won. Now Lightfoot has offered to boost their average salary to $100,000 after five years and she’s still getting the Harold Washington treatment.

It’s hard to ignore CTU’s obvious decision to move Sharkey to the background when TV cameras are rolling while Davis Gates throws barbs at Lightfoot, plays the race card to deflect criticism and make headlines without offering any pathway toward a deal.

Like the mayor said, “Enough is enough.” And anybody who knows Lightfoot will tell you she’s not going to back down.

So, hang in there, Chicago parents. All this Kabuki theater will be over soon, probably as costumed kids ring your doorbell on Halloween.

That’s the D-Day for working-class teachers that CTU bosses aren’t talking about. If they don’t cut a contract deal sometime before midnight on Oct. 31, rank-and-file teachers — some who are already considering driving Uber to pay the bills — will lose their health insurance benefits.

If that happens, City Hall sources tell me, they won’t get ‘em back in November even if the strike gets settled early in the month.

It’s trick or treat.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting and Emmy-nominated producer, was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN. He was a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

More Chicago Stories from Mark Konkol:

• CTU Boss Talks Like Working Man, Lives Like Wealthiest 1 Percent
• Massive Political Corruption Across Illinois Has A Namesake Beer
• Did Police Board Ruling Include A Secret Message To Chicago Cops?
• Lightfoot Must End 'Mayoral Prerogative' To Neglect Neighborhoods
• Meet The Guy Who Fixed Billy Corgan's Stolen Guitar