Chicago Teachers On Strike

The big news here in Chicago is that the Chicago public school teachers have gone out on strike. At Crain’s Chicago Business Greg Hinz remarks:

In the end, maybe it had to come to this. A strong-willed rookie mayor who needs to establish her bona fides as the leader of a tough city vs. a labor union with new leadership and a chip on its shoulder, seeking to reclaim some of its lost glory.

Still, Chicago and parents of its nearly 300,000 students have every reason to be upset. A labor dispute over a new contract between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union not only has not been resolved but has sparked a strike that, if it goes on for long, could cause real damage to the city and its students.

There’s a lot that could be said about this needless strike and no doubt will be. The outgoing mayor, Rahm Emanuel, is part of the subtext of the strike. Not only did he leave the labor dispute for his successor to deal with, he poisoned the well. It is possible to be the smartest, most capable guy in the world and still not be temperamentally suited to be the mayor of Chicago.

It’s essentially a contest over who calls the shots and, sadly, everybody loses. If Mayor Lightfoot relinquishes her statutory control over the Chicago Public Schools, she has no hope of making Chicago fiscally sound. Leaving the children of Chicago to their own devices while they’re on the picket line isn’t a good look for the CTU and the most they can accomplish is to hasten the date of the CPS’s default. And neither raising taxes nor teachers on strike will attract people to Chicago. Everybody loses.