The Chicago teachers strike may not end the way the city’s public school educators want it to, The Los Angeles Times reports. Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced plans Sunday evening to sue the union and force what he called an illegal strike to end immediately. “I will not stand by while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a union,” the mayor’s office says. “This was a strike of choice and is now a delay of choice that is wrong for our children.” Following more than two hours of reportedly contentious deliberation on Sunday afternoon, 800 teachers union delegates voted against ending the strike after negotiators from the district and the union had reached a tentative deal. Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis says the delegates were “not happy” with the agreement and that “they’d like for it to be a lot better for us than it is.” Jewish delegates, anticipating the arrival at sundown of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, also requested more time to examine the proposed three-year contract. Union officials pushed the next delegates meeting back to Tuesday, meaning teachers wouldn’t be back in class until Wednesday at the earliest. Emanuel’s office says it has told the city’s legal counsel to work with the school district’s attorneys to file an injunction in court to return students to their classrooms “immediately.”
Today’s poll question: Do you think teachers, during difficult collective contract negotiations, should remain in the classroom or go out on strike?
