Remember that Mayor Rahm Emanuel reneged on a negotiated 4% raise. He then offered a 2% raise, with undetermined merit pay to follow as he saw fit and demanded, for this, that teachers work a 20% longer school day.
Rahm's corporate pals changed the law so that CTU needed a 75% vote of union members to authorize a strike, thinking that would never happen. Some "reformer" whose name I don't recall boasted of this at a meeting. When the vote came, 98% voted to authorize a strike, which came to 90% of union members.
Rahm criticized them for not waiting to hear what the arbitrator would say. But when the arbitrator came back, he recommended a 15-20% raise for teachers. Rahm was not pleased. Chicago teachers rejected it too, because it did not address school conditions.
A sticking point in current negotiations is teacher evaluations. Rahm is insisting on VAM junk science, while CTU insists they stick to reality. Personally, I'm pro-reality.
Let's see whether Rahm's mentor, President Barack Obama, finds his comfortable shoes and stands with labor today.
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