Chicago Teachers Back in Class Today

The Chicago Teachers Union strike is over. Though the contract vote ended up being close, Mitch Smith and Monica Davey (see "Chicago Teachers’ Strike, Longest in Decades, Ends") conclude that it's a win for the union:

In the end, the clash between the teachers and Chicago’s new mayor, Lori Lightfoot, appeared to have brought mixed results. The city agreed to spend millions of dollars on reducing class sizes; promised to pay for hundreds more social workers, nurses and librarians; and approved a 16 percent salary increase over the coming five years. But not all union members were satisfied; a vote to approve a tentative deal was noticeably split, and some teachers wanted to press on to seek steeper reductions in class sizes, more teacher preparation time and aid for special education.

Still, the strike in Chicago, which followed a series of major teacher walkouts in conservative states like West Virginia and Oklahoma as well as liberal cities like Los Angeles and Denver, reflected a renewed wave of activism from teachers.

The reporting on this strike has been negligible in the mainstream national media. The Chicago Teachers Union strike of 2012 was more closely covered, probably because it featured Democratic Party big-shot mayor Rahm Emanuel battling no-holds-barred against a principal constituency of the Democratic Party, organized labor.

The 2012 strike spotlighted the abject neoliberal worship of the Democratic Party leadership. Nothing has changed in seven years, and this despite the fact that Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot campaigned explicitly on promises to enact the very changes the Chicago Teachers Union were willing to strike for -- smaller class size, more nurses, librarians and social workers.

Once again the voting public is offered up an example of the death grip of neoliberalism on representative democracy. You can be black; you can be a black woman; you can be a black LGBTQ woman; you can be a black LGBTQ woman who won a historic election by campaigning against neoliberalism, but none of it makes any difference once you enter government. Neoliberalism -- austerity, market orthodoxy, a tax code that favors the wealthy -- must be defended at all costs.

The 2019 Chicago Teachers Union strike is more fodder for another Blue Wave in 2020. It is bad news for Trump and bad news for Buttigieg, but also a warning for what is in store for Elizabeth Warren should she manage to find her way to the White House.