The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has authorized a strike by a huge majority vote of its membership, and the union’s House of Delegates voted to issue a ten-day notice to the Board of Education, making October 11 the date of a possible walkout.

If the board refuses to give ground on its demands for drastic concessions, this would be the second CTU strike in four years — but this time with political stakes that go far beyond the schools.

An unpopular Mayor Rahm Emanuel is trying to turn the public against teachers as City Hall struggles with a big spike in violence, a scandal over racist police violence, and discontent about the one-two punch of a weak economic recovery and budget cuts and tax increases that hit working people hardest.