No teacher’s strike in ‘16? I’d feel safer predicting an all-Chicago World Series

With all the back-and-forth that has occurred in recent months between the Chicago Public Schools and their teacher’s union, nobody really knows how the negotiations will turn out and whether we’ll get the sight of picket sign-bearing schoolteachers demanding more pay and benefits.

You just know that however the talks between schools and the teacher's union for a new contract wind up, we're going to find some reason to place blame on Rahm Emanuel.

The Chicago Sun-Times gave us the big headline “No Appetite For A Strike,” to support a story on Monday about Chicago Teachers Union officials saying the rank-and-file really don’t want to go out on strike. BUT they would if the administration does something to provoke them.

IN SHORT, IF there is a strike, it will be the administration’s fault, according to the union. Which issued a statement Monday saying the schools DO have enough money to provide a respectable contract, but would "rather take their fiscal woes out on the hides of educators and other school employees." Since the school administration is hand-picked by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, it ultimately becomes the mayor's fault.

Blame Rahm! Everything’s his fault.

Now I’m not about to predict how all of this will turn out, although it seems based on the most recent reporting that there isn’t any sort of enthusiasm for a teacher’s strike to begin later this month – one that theoretically would wipe out the rest of the school year.

Although school officials insist they’ve done enough of the current academic year that nobody in the way of students or parents would lose out. Only the teachers themselves would lose pay and benefits for that time, and any time lost off the summer break.

WHICH MEANS IF there is a strike, it is still most likely to be one that crops up come September. One that is meant to throw the 2016-17 academic year all out of whack – unless those darned administrators come to their senses and give the teachers what they want.

Which really isn’t much. Basically, they’re asking to keep as much of what they already have and not have significant cuts made at their expense in the name of balancing out the Chicago Public Schools’ finances!

Now I know the schools’ administration says that can’t be done. There are going to have to be reductions, and they’re trying to avoid having to whack the faculty staffing level to the point where there’d be a significant teacher shortage in the future.

What we had was that proposal made earlier this year by the schools, the one that officials said was the best offer they could make, but that the union rejected without even sending it to their membership for a vote.

ONLY TO HAVE an outside arbitrator rule recently that the schools’ offer may well be the best that can be done?

So there we are. Who’s going to be willing to give? Is it possible for anybody to give? Who’s going to be willing to look weak and ineffectual? And above all, would parents wind up becoming so frustrated at having to make arrangements for their kids’ day care in the event of a strike that they wind up blaming everybody in sight?

Blame the teachers! Blame the schools and their administrators! Blame societal conditions! And above all else, blame Rahm Emanuel!!!!!!!!!!!

So will there be a teacher’s strike; either later this month or some time in September? I don’t know. Anybody who claims they do know is lying to you.

I REALLY WOULD feel safer placing a bet that the World Series this year will be the long-awaited Chicago White Sox vs. Chicago Cubs match-up.

Both ball clubs began the second month of the 2016 season in first place in their respective divisions. Although anybody with sense about baseball knows Memorial Day is the point at which you first seriously study the standings to determine who started off good.

By that point, the teams could be struggling to play .500 ball.

And that bet of a Chicago defeating Chicago in the World Series for the first time in 110 years since the Sox took down the Cubs in 1906 would look as premature as the one saying the sides will agree on a teacher's contract without the need to walk the picket lines.

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Emanuel/Lewis could get U-G-L-Yer; could Chuy reputation be the winner?

The smartaleck in me wonders if Jesus Garcia is getting miffed that the contract talks by the Chicago Public Schools and the teacher’s union didn’t get heated up prior to Election Day.

Because with the way the two sides are showing that it will take a political miracle for them to agree on a deal, I wonder if that could have been enough of a factor get get Garcia’s mayoral aspirations the additional votes to close what was a 56-44 percent gap in the electoral turnout.

NOT THAT I think any of the people who wound up voting for Rahm Emanuel’s re-election could have been swayed into backing Garcia’s mayoral campaign. But could it have motivated more of the roughly three-fifths of registered voters who didn’t bother to vote to take some sort of action?

Could we now be dealing with “Mayor-elect Jesus Garcia” if the contract talks had become more of an issue prior to April 7?

That thought popped into my mind this week when I learned that the Chicago Teachers Union filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board.

It seems the Chicago Public Schools has asked the teachers to take a pay cut, supposedly to avoid the possibility of layoffs. The union has called that pay cut proposal an insult.

THE PAY CUT is allegedly necessary to come up with the money the district needs to cover a larger share of the cost of covering pension payments for teacher retirement programs – supposedly a 7 percent cut in the amount of paychecks the teachers currently receive.

It’s coming across that the Chicago Public Schools wants help from its labor in terms of addressing the financial problems that now face District 299 (a.k.a., the city’s public schools system).

The current contract expires June 30, but I don’t think there’s anybody out there who expects the two sides to suddenly come to terms and meet that deadline.

We’re likely to see continued talks throughout the summer months, then the possibility of wondering if the schools will open on time (and stay open) for the 2015-16 academic year.

BECAUSE THE TWO sides have had several sessions dating back to November, yet there doesn’t seem to be anything in the way of progress. The Emanuel mayoral administration is likely go to into the local history books as the one that continually provokes strikes from its teachers.

Unlike the Richard M. Daley administration that managed to go for decades without labor disputes.

Now I can already hear the rants of certain types of people (the ones who think the City Council was disrespectful to Gov. Bruce Rauner by immediately passing their anti-turnaround measure after the governor urged them to support it) who are going to claim that the unions ARE the problem and that we’d all be better off if we’d realize that employers should be able to give us what they think is proper.

But this desire to advance oneself and look out for our interests IS the “American Way,” so to speak.

I CAN’T REALLY fault the teachers union officials who are following the lead of union President Karen Lewis, who this week said she believed the public schools’ negotiating tactics are “reactionary and retaliatory” for past grievances.

Even though I’m sure some people would argue they are merely examples of Rahm being Rahm. And I mean the overly-profane Emanuel; not the nice, soft, fuzzy Rahm who tried creeping up in the campaign commercials while talking about how incompetent a person Garcia is.

Well, Election Day is past. We have the officials we have. Those people who care about Garcia’s future are likely to focus on the talk that he will run for something (most likely a Congressional seat) come the 2016 election cycle.

Although I do wonder if he could wind up getting a boost in such a campaign if the teacher contract talks do wind up resulting in picket lines for a second time in four years. Sort of a “Who’s not qualified now?” type of vote for Chuy against whomever he winds up challenging!

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