-By Warner Todd Huston
New Chicago public teachers union chief Karen Lewis could have come into office as a visionary that would bring some sanity to teachers union bloated demands in this era of the worst economy since the Great Depression. She could have seen the good sense of lowering expectations. She could have taken the stance of refusing to take pay raises for Chicago’s teachers as a motion of good faith in negotiating. Unfortunately, Lewis has proven herself to void of vision and stuck in the 1990s by continuing obscene union demands of constant raises and ever greater perks for union members.
In a day when unions are losing the last shred of good will that they once enjoyed in the public, Karen Lewis stood stiff-necked and refused to compromise with Chicago School head Ron Huberman. Lewis rejected giving up an automatic 4% raise in exchange for preventing layoffs.
She’d rather grab for the cash than save teacher’s jobs.
But the bigger failure that Lewis and her union revealed in these negotiations is an inability to understand simple Public Relations. The public is getting more tired every day of grasping, greedy unions. As more people in the private sector lose their jobs they look at these public employee unions — the people who make their living off the taxpayers — and are disgusted by the union’s greed.
Lewis could have taken this opportunity to build some good will for her union. But, no, she made a grab for the cash instead.
So, the teachers have rejected the administration’s offer. Now what? Strike? Or do we end up seeing our grasping, greedy politicians in our state capitol looking to Washington for so-called “stumulus” money to “solve” the problem. And isn’t Lewis just assuming this will happen anyway? Instead of forcing just Illinois taxpayers to bail her out and give her increasing pay and benefits while everyone else suffers she’ll now look to every taxpayer in the country to keep her and her teachers in the luxury to which they’ve become accustomed.
Must be nice work… IF you can get it?
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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