Rally in support of Chicago teachers who want a fair contract that guarantees: nurses, librarians, social workers, and counselors; smaller class sizes; a decent pay raise for educators, school staff and the Chicago Park District workers who provide the after school services that children and parents depend on.
The Mayor made promises to support public education which was starved of adequate funds by the past two mayors. While she promises to make good on her campaign pledges she refuses to put the key provisions in to the contract that is being bargained to make them enforceable.
Speakers provide a back story of why they will support of the city's teachers and children should a strike be forced by the mayor. And following years of betrayal by former mayors, when it comes to keeping their promises, why they are demanding that Mayor Lightfoot, who ran on an education platform sounding a lot like the unions own, put her promises in writing.
Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopezand, 25th Ward and Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th Ward, and Cook County Commissioner. Brandon Johnson speak at the rally. Also addressed by a speaker is why affordable housing, part of the union's contract demand, is essential for the healthy development and well being of the children that teachers are responsible for educating and facilitating in their development as healthy human beings. The strike is about more than the salary and benefits that the Mayor and corporate media are trying to narrow the story to. Its a fight against neoliberal ideologues and those businessmen who see public education as a cash cow and children from disadvantaged environments as exploitable and disposable.
Speakers also include representatives of the Chicago Teachers Union, SEIU Local 73, Parents 4 Teachers, GoodKids MadCity, Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP), Coalition to Close the Concentration Camps, CTU Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff, National Nurses United at University of Chicago Medical Center, and Graduate Employees Organization at the University of Illinois at Chicago