All Articles Tagged "unions"
Chicago Kids Are Back In School, But Questions About Education Reform and Unions Remain
Kids head back to school after the end of the Chicago teachers strike. Image: AP Photo/M. Spencer Green
Students and teachers went back to class yesterday, ending a seven-day teachers strike that caught nationwide attention for the education and labor issues it brought to the fore. Now, both sides have to deal with the cost of the agreement that they’ve agreed to.
“Pay raises and hiring nearly 500 new teachers to implement the longer school day has a higher price tag — as high as $295 million — that some say could lead to higher property taxes,” reports NBC News in Chicago. There could be tax hikes on things like cigarettes. Teachers are getting a three percent raise in the first year and a two percent raise each of the two following years. There’s also an option for the fourth year.
The deal also calls for teacher evaluations that take standardized tests into account by 30 percent, a change to the “last in, first out” rule for layoffs and monitoring of class size. A more comprehensive list is available here, though the full contract hasn’t been released.
However, BusinessWeek reports that there could be trouble in the not-so-distant future.
“Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Public Schools system he runs face a projected $1 billion deficit next year and the prospect of scores of school closings. The union peace they obtained may be short-lived because other pressures — including at least $338 million in pension payments due in 2014 — are squeezing the budget,” this article says.
In other words, the overarching financial issues plaguing the city and the public education system could encroach on any agreement the two sides have come to. This is important when you think of the financial state of cities and public education systems across the country. Nationwide, cities large and small are faced with economic crunches that threaten all kinds of local processes, like pensions. Moreover, the move towards charter schools and other educational alternatives is changing the face of public education.
And one expert, Robert Bruno, professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Chicago, tells The Chicago Tribune that it’s a step in the direction towards the education reform that teacher’s support.
“What the CTU managed to do is take their philosophy of what schools should look like into the public square,” he said.
Separately, we were curious to learn more about Karen Lewis, the Chicago Teachers Union president who took on Mayor Emanuel. Turns out she’s a 59-year-old Chicago public school grad who went on to Dartmouth and became a chemistry teacher. She’s led the CTU for two years and has proven to be a worthy adversary to the Mayor and an excellent adovcate for teachers. To learn more about her, read this story.
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Follow Up: Chicago Teachers Strike Appears To Be Nearing An End
Image: AP Photo/Sitthixay Ditthavong
As we move into the fifth day of the strike involving Chicago’s public school teachers, an end may be in sight. Chicago Public Schools and the city’s teachers union say they have some “number crunching” to do, but so much progress has been made that teachers and students could be back in classrooms on Monday. The Chicago Tribune reports that the union has asked supporters to come out for a final protest tomorrow at noon.
There is a proposal for resolving the big issue — how teachers will be evaluated — that will put a tiered system in place, in addition to weighing student test scores. Those exam results will count for 30 to 35 percent of the evaluation process with student surveys and principal observations also put into consideration. Tenured teachers won’t be fired during the first year as the new system works itself out. All teachers will be given a chance to improve if they receive an unsatisfactory evaluation.
As we reported the other day, the strike has wide-reaching implications for the black community. The number of minority teachers in Chicago has dropped. Parents and students have been inconvenienced by the strike, with some parents having to change their work schedules or pay for other child care arrangements. There was concern that the relationship between President Obama and unions could be negatively impacted if the strike dragged on. And the questions of education reform came to the forefront.
This resolution will by no means resolve the public education issues that the country faces. But trying a new system could put us one step closer to improving a system that’s responsible for educating millions of kids, our next generation of leaders and thinkers.
*Update: A tentative deal has been reached.
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City, Unions Near Deal on Plan to Cut Health Costs
(Chicago News Cooperative) — Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration and labor unions representing the majority of the city’s workforce were close to reaching a deal Wednesday to start a program that Emanuel hopes will help slash the cash-starved city’s annual $500 million tab for employee health care costs. City employees would be required to participate in a wellness program involving frequent health screenings or pay $50 a month more for medical insurance coverage, sources close to the negotiations told the Chicago News Cooperative. A team of Emanuel aides led by Deputy Mayor Mark Angelson have negotiated the agreement with leaders of virtually every major city labor group except for the police officers’ union, the sources said. Kathleen Strand, a spokeswoman for Angelson, declined comment on the negotiations. Since before taking office in May, Emanuel has promised to institute a wellness program, saying it could cut the city’s health care bill.
Jay-Z's 40/40 Targeted by Union
(Toronto Sun) — Rap superstar Jay-Z has come under fire from members of a carpentry union after hiring a private firm to renovate his New York sports bar. The Empire State of Mind hitmaker shut down the Manhattan branch of his 40/40 Club in June to give the venue a complete design overhaul, worth an estimated $10 million. It was expected to relaunch this month, but Jay-Z and his business partner Juan Perez are now looking at a November re-opening.
Union Membership Falls in NYC, Study Finds
(Crain’s) — Organized labor has been all over the local news lately—from an ongoing walkout at the Central Park Boathouse, to the recent Verizon strike, to a summer of contract squabbles in the construction industry. But while unions remain influential in the city, substantial erosion has occurred in recent years in their membership rates, according to a new report by City University of New York researchers. Among workers living in the city, 22.9% were union members in the 18 months ending in June, down from 24.6% in January 2009 through June 2010, the report found. Losses in union membership have been disproportionately concentrated in the private sector.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel to Unions: Contract Changes or Layoffs
(Chicago Tribune) — In a recurring early theme of his tenure, Mayor Rahm Emanuel put the squeeze on organized labor Wednesday, telling City Hall unions he’ll lay off 625 workers unless they quickly get on board with money-saving changes to their jobs. Emanuel’s latest declaration, which comes on the heels of a bitter exchange with the Chicago Teachers Union over pay raises, is but a precursor to the more profound debate on the budget problems the city faces next year and beyond. With prospects for an economic recovery muted, the freshman mayor is turning to his biggest-ticket item for savings. Payroll makes up 83 percent of the city’s day-to-day spending, so clashes with public employees unions could become the new normal in Chicago.
NBA Lockout Now Official
(Wall Street Journal) — NBA owners locked out their players Friday after labor negotiations collapsed, threatening the upcoming basketball season. Owners and players met in New York Thursday for a last-ditch negotiating session as the contract expired at midnight, but failed to reach a resolution on key sticking points —including salary cap parameters and revenue splits. NBA Commissioner David Stern and players union head Billy Hunter said the two sides remained far apart in their fight over how to divide about $4 billion in league revenue. The owners say they are losing money and want a bigger share. The players say they are willing to make concessions on salaries but don’t want to give up as much as the owners are asking.
Unions Throw Monkey Wrench into City Budget Deal
(Amsterdam News) — The rain couldn’t dampen the spirits of the public union employees at City Hall on Tuesday afternoon. That’s what happens when you go toe to toe with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. DC37, the largest public employees union in New York City, held a rally in Lower Manhattan to protest Bloomberg’s proposed service cuts and layoffs as a means of balancing the city’s budget. Union leaders from such groups as SEIU 119, TWU Local 100 and CSEA and elected officials alike took to the stage on the Broadway side of City Hall Park to voice their displeasure with the mayor, declaring solidarity with unions everywhere. ”Instead of bringing us together to solve the serious problems confronting New York City and other cities and states throughout the country, politicians are telling working families to make all the sacrifices,” said Lee Saunders, secretary-treasury of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
NFL Players' Negotiator Maintains Game Face
By Glenn Minnis
DeMaurice Smith has always been confident. So much so that as the newly elected president of the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) and overnight confidante to its 1,900 locked out members, he doesn’t bat an eye at the notion of being a relative outsider now entrusted with rescuing the sport from itself.
Then again, his ability has long rated as impressive. How else can you explain how the grandson of a sharecropper could rise to the position of having Barack Obama and Eric Holder on speed dial?
“There isn’t a day when I don’t understand the pressures of this job,” said the 46-year-old Smith, who left the prestigious D.C. law firm Patton Boggs to assume his latest post. “But then you stack them up against my grandfather [and] everything pales. There were days when he was thinking: ‘How am I going to feed my 14 kids? Are we getting a fair deal from the land owner? How are my children going to get out?’ Now, that’s pressure.”
And so, cloaked in the strength of such tough-mindedness, Smith’s soldiers on in a battle many hoped would never come to this point. After nearly three months, NFL players remain locked out of all team facilities and locked into a high-stakes, winner-take-all staredown with owners that shows no real signs of abating. Beyond the NFL season itself, at issue is the allocation and distribution of more than $8 billion in annual league-wide revenue.
“We made the decision to fight for who we are,” said Smith. “I know this is a multi-billion dollar industry but nobody gets strong without fighting. Nobody just negotiates their way to strength… you have to be willing to take action. Athletes are the same as everyone else — if you want to be treated fairly you have to be willing to stand up for yourself. It’s vastly different from something as simple as ‘just shut up and play’. To effect change you have to be willing to be the agent of change.”
Over the long haul Smith has a plan for the game away from the game never before seen in the league’s 91-year history. Greater concern about players long-term health and better retirement benefits are part of Smith’s master plan. At his urging players made the game-changing decision to decertify their union, thus giving them the option of airing their grievances in court and paving the way for individual players to file antitrust suits against the league. To date ,NFL heavyweights Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Tom Brady have all attached their names to the suit as a show of support for Smith and his leadership.
Union Gives Target the Wal-Mart Treatment
(New York Times) — In the world of big-box discounters, Target enjoys a reputation as a model corporate citizen that sells the latest in cheap chic. That’s a sharp contrast to the image of Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, which labor unions have pilloried for years, accusing it of providing skimpy wages and benefits and skirting various labor laws. But the arrows are about to come flying at Target’s famous bull’s-eye logo. The nation’s largest union for retail workers has embarked on its first broad campaign to unionize Target workers. The union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, is trying to organize 5,000 workers at 27 Target stores in the New York City area. A majority of workers at the Target store in Valley Stream, N.Y., have already signed cards supporting unionization, and a government-supervised election there on June 17 will be the first time in more than two decades that Target workers will vote on whether to join a union. “A lot of people are going to be shocked that Target workers would consider unionizing because of its very good image and because it’s known as such a fantastic philanthropic organization,” said Burt Flickinger, a retailing consultant who has worked on projects for both the union and Target suppliers.
