Barring any last-minute movement at the negotiating table tonight, over 35,000 Chicago Public Schools workers will go on strike tomorrow. Leading the charge is the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), building on its recent contract fights and the nationwide teachers’ movement, and driven by a shared vision of a just education system for all. In 2012, Chicago educators gave a blueprint for using union contract negotiations and militant workplace action to fight for broad reforms that benefit all workers; today, they’re doing it again.

The numbers and strike approval vote alone would make it one of the most significant strikes in years: 25,000 CTU teachers, clinicians, and support staff (94 percent of whom authorized a strike); 7,500 special education classroom assistants, custodians, security officers, and bus aides from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73 (97 percent); and 2,500 SEIU Chicago Parks District supervisors, attendants, instructors, and landscape laborers (94 percent).

But the most important aspect of the unions’ strategy for the labor movement is their commitment to solidarity — not only with fellow members of their own union, but with another union, Local 73, as well as students and all of working-class Chicago.