“This City Is Ours, Too”
Chicago teachers are on strike today. A high school teacher explains to us why the strike is the union’s best tool to fight for better conditions in the city’s schools and an end to austerity.
Striking Chicago public school teachers and their supporters prepare to march through the Loop on October 17, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois.Scott Olson / Getty
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is on strike. The teachers walked off the job this morning alongside members of SEIU Local 73 who work as school staff, making demands for an end to poverty wages for Local 73 members and adequate funding for social workers, nurses, and librarians in Chicago schools.
Mueze Bawany teaches twelfth grade “senior seminar” at Roberto Clemente High School in Humboldt Park, a historically Puerto Rican neighborhood on Chicago’s northwest side. The night before walking off the job, Bawany explained what’s at stake in the strike.
Indigo Olivier
Following the expiration of the Chicago Teachers Union’s (CTU) contract in June, a contract proposal that included a 16 percent salary increase over the next five years was proposed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, but the CTU has been making demands beyond increasing teachers’ salaries. What’s at stake during this strike and why the CTU didn’t agree to the contract offer?
Mueze Bawany
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