Chicago Teacher Unions

I am here as a high school teacher in Fallsburg and also as the chief negotiator for the Fallsburg Teachers Association (FTA) because our members are deeply dissatisfied with their wages, health benefits and teacher rights. We want an end to the struggle. There has been no pay increase in the past 5 years. Health care costs will increase by 33 to 40% by next year.

A teacher union is an association of teaching professionals who work to secure their rights and interests. The first thing that pops into my head when I hear “teacher unions,” is that they are beneficial not only to teachers, but also students and families. Being protected and having stable conditions is given to the families of both the students and teachers. It is to be true that teacher unions help to have a positive influence on the academic performance of the students, additionally, the quality of public education. Currently, not all will be certain that this is true, but in Taking Sides it goes in depth on whether teacher unions are positively and/or negatively affecting schooling. Andrew Coulson argues that yes teacher unions stymie school reforms, whereas Louis Malfaro argues that no teacher unions are absolutely influencing the improvements of teaching and learning positively. Both Coulson and Malfaro have significant points to back up this argument on what they believe about teacher unions.

Even though lecturers have heavy loads of teaching and work, do they deserve higher salaries? In the article, UW professors consider forming faculty labor union by Rod Palmquist, tells the struggles of Carrie Matthews, a UW professor, who is trying to form a labor union to get higher salaries for non-tenured faculty members.

During 1971, the members of Chicago Teachers Union felt like they were not only under-appreciated but underpaid as well. Teachers had been laid off, their pay increase had been cut, and their classrooms were over run by students (The History of the Chicago Teachers Union). Since the 1930s, Chicago teachers have been trying to gain higher wages and improve working conditions. From their first official strike in 1969, the Board of Education had done nothing to meet those needs of the teachers and members of the union. According to Substance News, the union had always been “ organizing and negotiating over what were called ‘social justice issues’” (STRIKE WATCH 1971). These social injustice issues represented a huge problem for teachers in Chicago.

Labor unions have existed in one way or another since the birth of our country in 1776. They were created in an effort to protect the working population from abuses such as sweatshops and unsafe working conditions. From the start of our Nation there were a few unions organized unions in a scattered fashion, but many were disbanded after they had achieved their goals, such as when the printers and shoemakers briefly unionized in Philadelphia and New York City in 1778 to conduct the first recorded strike for higher wages. Three years later in 1971 the first successful strike happened, when Philadelphia carpenters campaigned for a ten-hour workday. This caused the need for skilled and unskilled laborers to skyrocket during the Industrial Revolution and the Civil War and also got the ball rolling with Labor unions. At this point in our Country, there had been nothing done yet for workers’ rights, conditions, pay, and so on. People at this time saw that they could come together and do something to make their lives better for themselves and their families. Many of these dates were important in shaping our country’s labor policies into what they are today. In 1847 New Hampshire enacts as the first state to enforce a 10-hour workday law. In 1909 the International Ladies’ Garment workers’ Union calls a strike in New York, demanding a 20-percent raise and a 52-hour workweek. Within two days, more than 20,000 workers from 500 factories walk off the job. This largely successful uprising

Chicago Public Schools are the fourth largest district in the U.S and one of the lowest performing in the U.S. The school system in Chicago is struggling not only with student performance, but also with the large amount of debt the school has and the fight to come to an agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union.

For some students, even though they can get high scores in exam, but that’s all they can do. They just memorize the solution and don’t try to understand and absorb the real knowledge behind the exam, for these kinds of students we can’t say that their teachers do well. Comparing with this, some students have really penetrating understanding to the knowledge, their know how to use them even though it can’t reflect on their exam scores sometimes, but their teachers still deserve higher paid. There is no doubt that we can’t tolerate keeping low-performing teachers in classrooms because it hurts everyone, but the method used to evaluate teacher performance should be sophisticated enough to consider all factors that can affect a child’s success in classroom before they can be used to as a standard to punish or award teachers. Chicago strike also evokes a debate toward salary problem. Chicago teachers have the highest average salary of any city at $76,000 a year before benefits, compared with the median household income in Chicago is $46,000 (BBC News: para 4). So many people couldn’t understand that teachers rejected a 16 percent salary increase when most occupations are not getting and raises and many people are under unemployment. There are two reasons that CTU still raise salary debate even though teachers already get enough paid. Firstly, CTU considered the law aspect. According to Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act, it is illegal for teachers to strike on all

The labor union movement over the years has shaped the way individuals work and live for both the nicest and unpleasant. Some would think the unions influence has created a power struggle between management and union leaders. In today’s time, some citizens insist the existence of unions are a must to aid in employee freedom, while others view the labor unions as just another problem in the line of progress. The purpose of labor unions was for employed workers to come together and collectively agree on fundamental workplace objectives. The rise of the union came about after the Civil War- responding to the industrial economy. Surprisingly at the least unions became popular within the 1930-50’s and began to slowly decrease,

A major topic that comes up with unions is getting better wages for the employees. This is one of the main reasons that unions came to be. Workers of all fields were tired of being paid unfairly by big companies. They realized that they needed a way to organize themselves to fight for better pay. Unions helped aid in this fight. According to History.com, “ The formation of the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers (shoemakers) in Philadelphia in 1794 marks the beginning of sustained trade union organization among American workers.” This was the first time workers tried to organize themselves to get more money for what they did. A key way that unions used workers to make businesses meet their demands was organized strikes. With these organized strikes, the big companies had to comply with some of the demands to raise the employee 's wage, or it would cost them more money in the long run. Strikes are a very powerful tool that unions have used often in the past. Unions orchestrated the strikes in the past pretty well, and the majority of strikes accomplished the goal they were trying to complete. Unions have always fought with companies to give the workers the pay they deserve.

Though, unions are declining, the role of union have evolved over time. Now, it is more common to view unions’ primary role as collective bargaining, which is the product of the economic decision and making process with unionism of the private sector. A long time ago, Union was seen as the shield that protects American workers against some of the abusive employers. Many public sector employees have unionized. However, the National Labor Relations Act was designed for the private sector. Despite that, union has become a model for most public sector collective bargaining right. Regardless of the success that Unions have with collective bargaining in the private sector, there are still a few who are opposed collective bargaining in the public sector. Of course, there are some differences between the public and private sectors.

For the second time in almost 4 years, over 350,000 Chicago Public School Students may not be able to go to school because of the CTU Strike that is currently in progress today (The Washington Post). The issue between the Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Public Schools has not been solved yet due to disagreements about the income received. The Chicago Teachers Union has made offers to school administrations; however, the responses were not in their favor. The union has been in progress of agreeing on a contract “since November 2011, [and the strike that occurred at the time] was the first to hit the Windy City in 25 years” (Liebelson). The issue must have erupted due to a misconception or a realization of problems occurring. Chicago Teachers Union choosing to strike does not affect charter schools since they are not a part of Chicago Public Schools. The issue of school strikes can be fixed by increasing the budgets and providing useful resources to teachers in order to improve the level of education.

Over the years unions have provided many benefits to union workers through collective bargaining. One of the biggest union forces in the United States is the teachers union. With almost close to 5 million members nationwide, the teachers union is one of the most powerful unions. Through collective bargaining, problems have been created for the public school system which takes place at local school districts; rules have been imposed to create ineffective forms of organization at schools. The rules that are currently in place by collective bargaining are also creating a big disconnection with many public schools, that being the interest of the children. The teachers union is one main role

Collective Bargaining has a feeling that lends a person to believe that it is for the people and at one point it was true and may even have a place within a private sector setting but not within the public sector. When a person looks at private unions you can see a general difference in the structure from that of Private-Sector unions. Even AFL-CIO President George Meany and even President Franklin D. Roosevelt who were labor union advocates saw that the unionization of the public sector as being unthinkable. From an economic standpoint all unions would have too much power and engage in trying to monopolize the supply of labor in each industry in order to increase the price of work. (IE. Wages) In a public sector union would grant a

In my position as a union leader, I have seen teachers fight tirelessly for these causes. Also in this position, I have worked with teachers who do not understand that the role of unions as well as the relationships that they have with their districts must change to survive. This change in relationship status must be made by both the union as well as the district their teachers serve. I am lucky to be a part of union and district that understands this need for change. I have witnessed a shift in the mentality of the people I work with. Someday, I would like to play a role in other districts changing their “us against them” mentality by taking what I have learned about empowering teachers; the people who play the biggest role in educating students and giving them a bigger say in how our students are

As taught in the lecture, unions are collective organizations whose primary objective is to improve worker outcomes through collective bargaining with employers over labour contracts, the “outcomes” usually meaning higher wages and more employment. In firms where discrimination against minority or less-educated are rampant, union’s impacts are especially evident. Without unions, a worker’s wage is typically based on manager’s judgment on his/her performance, which can be easily biased by the manager’s attitudes towards the worker’s education, ethnicity, gender and etc. Under such circumstances, workers such as blue collars and high school graduates can be easily discriminated, and may be paid lower wages even if they do the same amount of work as others. However, with the help of union, and collective bargaining it brings, those disadvantaged workers gain more leverage when negotiating with their employers on the salary. As