from the Chicago Teachers Union
On August 21, 2012 CTU members and supporters engaged in informational picketing at schools across the city to discuss contract negotiations with the communities we serve.
Posts tagged ‘Illinois’
Chicago Teachers Union Informational Picketing, Day 2
by n0madic, posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012 at 8:13 pmChicago Teachers Union vs. Astroturf Billionaires
by n0madic, posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2012 at 2:04 pmfrom the Chicago Teachers Union
The Chicago Teachers Union is currently on the front lines of a fight to defend public education. On one side the 30,000 members of the CTU have called for a contract that includes fair compensation, meaningful job security for qualified teachers, smaller class sizes and a better school day with Art, Music, World Language and appropriate staffing levels to help our neediest students.
On the other side, the Chicago Board of Education—which is managed by out of town reformers and Broad Foundation hires with little or no Chicago public school experience—has pushed to add two weeks to the school year and 85 minutes to the school day, eliminate pay increases for seniority, evaluate teachers based on student test scores, and slash many other rights.
Teachers, parents and community supporters in Chicago have fought valiantly—marching, filling auditoriums at hearings and parent meetings, even occupying a school and taking over a school board meeting. Most recently, 98 percent of our members voted to authorize a strike. But now we find ourselves facing new opponents—national education privatizers, backed by some of the nation’s wealthiest people. They are running radio ads, increasing press attacks, and mounting a PR campaign to discredit the CTU and the benefits of public education.
PDA IL–TIF Abuse: The Hyatt Hotel and Hyde Park Schools
by n0madic, posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2012 at 2:02 pmfrom PDA-IL
PDA IL joins the Chicago Teachers Union, Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign, Gray Panthers, Northern Illinois Jobs for Justice, Unite Here and National Nurses United among other labor unions and Hyde Park community activists to protest against the use of property taxes going to fund the building of a new luxury hotel in Hyde Park while schools face millions of dollars in cuts.
Bickerdike TIF Training
by n0madic, posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2012 at 2:00 pmfrom the Grassroots Collaborative
Over 20 Bickerdike activists attend a training to learn about Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and how the inequality of TIF distribution is effecting our neighborhoods, schools, libraries, and parks.
August 7, 2012.
PDA-IL: Kristine Mayle of the Chicago Teachers Union on the current state of contract negotiations
by n0madic, posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2012 at 10:06 amfrom PDA-IL
Chicago Teachers Union Financial Secretary Kristine Mayle speaks on the current state of Chicago Public Schools and contract negotiations.
August 13, 2012
Grassroots Collaborative: Fulton on the River Action, Chicago, August 7th
by n0madic, posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2012 at 9:27 amHeroes on the Streets of Kane County
by Ellen McClennan, posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2012 at 8:05 amDogged. Indefatigable. Diligent. Determined. Steadfast. And oh my gosh, just plain heroic. The four-dozen or so Kane County residents who circulated petitions to stop special interest money from buying favors from our politicians are my heroes. They were headed by Kaye Gamble, and were part of the national Move to Amend effort.
For days on end, they endured 90 to 100 degree heat. They asked the same question, “Are you a Kane County registered voter?” hundreds and hundreds of times. And when people were willing to stop and talk with them, they explained the same thing over and over and over again. With enthusiasm and patience. They listened and they responded with accurate information.
When people stopped to hear what the petition was about, most people signed it. But sometimes it was difficult to get peoples’ attention. Some passers- by believed the group was trying to register voters or take an opinion survey and didn’t want to get involved. But when people did stop to hear the issue, just about everybody signed the petitions, Gamble said. Some were so enthusiastic they brought their spouses, friends, and voting age children over to sign. All were thankful of the group’s efforts.
Group Working to Make Democracy Safe for Middle Class Again
by Ellen McClennan, posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2012 at 8:00 am“We’ve never seen this many petitions!” Suzanne Fahnestock, Kane County Director of Elections said with a broad smile as she accepted the tall pile of petitions presented by Kaye Gamble, coordinator of the Kane County Move to Amend effort.
The group of about fifty Kane County citizens spent untold hours standing in record-breaking summer heat collecting signatures in a petition drive to place an advisory question on the ballot this November. Nearly fifteen thousand citizens signed those petitions.
The petition requests this question be placed on the Kane County November ballot– “Should the United States constitution be amended to limit the use of corporate, special interest, and private money in any political activity, including influencing the election of any candidate for public office?”
Gamble’s group is part of the national Move to Amend effort to amend the constitution in order to nullify the 2010 Supreme Court ruling of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. This ruling created Super PACs and Hybrid Super PACs, overturning decades of limits to political contributions and opening up unlimited floods of undisclosed corporate, private, special interest and foreign money into politicians’ election campaigns.
PDA-Chicago: Don’t Take Our Children’s Money!
by n0madic, posted on Monday, August 6th, 2012 at 8:00 amfrom PDA-Chicago
Join PDA Chicago as we stand with the Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign this Wednesday, August 8, to protest public tax money going to corporate welfare.
5:30-8:00 p.m., Lake Park Ave. and E. 53rd St., Chicago, 60615
$5.2 million of property taxes intended for our public schools is going to Hyatt Hotels, a company that doesn’t need it. No more corporate welfare!
TR’s “Confession of Faith” to the National Progressive Party convention, Chicago, 1912
by n0madic, posted on Monday, August 6th, 2012 at 7:00 amIn early August, 1912, progressives from across the country gathered in Chicago to launch a new political party. It was to be “a convention managed by women and has-beens,” said a New York Times reporter dismissively. “About everyone here who wears trousers is an ex. There are ex-Senators, ex-Secretaries, and ex-Commissioners galore. Everybody who is not an ex is a woman.”
It was also to be a
Below is a transcript of Roosevelt’s speech to the convention, his “confession of faith,” as he put it. It was delivered one hundred years ago today, and in some of it’s particulars it shows it’s age. What is most interesting, however, is how much of it still needs to be said, but almost certainly won’t be, by the presidential candidates the New York Times will be focusing it’s attention on this year.
ADDRESS BY
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Before the Convention of the National Progressive Party
in Chicago, August 6, 1912
To you, men and women who have come here to this great city of this great State formally to launch a new party, a party of the people of the whole Union, the National Progressive Party, I extend my hearty greeting. You are taking a bold and a greatly needed step for the service of our beloved country. The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly what should be said on the vital issues of the day.
