Daily Kos: Chicago school janitors file strike notice as teachers' fight for better schools continues

Daily Kos: Chicago school janitors file strike notice as teachers' fight for better schools continues

It's day three of the Chicago teachers strike, and now the teachers union and school system management are agreed that a contract agreement is not imminent. With the strike looking likely to continue, the SEIU local that represents custodians in some of the city's schools has filed a strike notice so that janitors can honor teachers' picket lines.
Management's strategy, as displayed in every public statement school system representatives make, is to simply try to make the teachers look recalcitrant and selfish—the unelected school board president described negotiations as "silly season," saying it's "time to get serious," both insults to teachers giving up their paychecks precisely because this is so serious. The union's description of negotiations was a little different:

Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey said the day's discussions had centered on teacher evaluation and that "some substantial movement" had been made, but not enough. "I don't want to get in the weeds, but I'd say we moved more than they did today," he said. [...]
"They basically dug in their heels and said if we didn't give them a comprehensive proposal, we didn't have anything to talk about," Sharkey said.

Both sides are being strategic in their statements, of course. But the union has made clear, repeatedly in public and private through months of negotiations, what teachers are asking for. Management's constant statements—free of specifics about their own proposals, at least in recent days—that the teachers are not being serious, are choosing this strike, aren't making real proposals, are intended to convey that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his appointed school board will not be moving, that it is up to the teachers to give in, and that the teachers are therefore solely to blame for the strike. If this is the attitude they bring into negotiations, no wonder the two sides aren't closer to a deal.

Full Story here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/12/1130693/-Chicago-school-janitors-file-strike-notice-as-teachers-fight-for-better-schools-continues