Ten Years Ago, Chicago Teachers Gave Us All a Jolt of Hope
Chicago teachers marched in a mass rally on May 23, 2012, part of the ramp-up to their big strike that fall. Photo: Sarah Ji, loveandstrugglephotos.com.
If you feel like your union needs a jump-start—whether you’re a longtime shop steward or just started your first union job—this book is for you.
The impulse you have (“This union could be stronger and better, and I want to help change it”) makes you part of a long tradition—what we at Labor Notes affectionately call the trouble-making wing of the labor movement.
One basic principle unites us troublemakers. We believe democracy, meaning broad member participation at every level of the union, is the heart of union power.
The Chicago Teachers Union’s 2012 strike didn’t just put the union on the map; it gave a jolt of hope to the whole labor movement.
We wrote this book because the story of how rank and filers changed CTU provided a model for anyone looking to transform a do-nothing union into a fighting force.
When they started, their union had problems common to local unions across the U.S.: uninspiring leaders, inactive members, too few stewards, a heavy-handed employer, no strikes in recent memory, a general sense of passivity and hopelessness.
Yet just a few years later, 27,000 teachers in the nation’s third-largest district struck for a week and a half under the slogan “Fighting for the Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve,” rallying the public to their side and beating back a powerful mayor.
If they did it, so can you. That’s still true.
We drew lessons anyone could apply. These activists who formed the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE) inside CTU succeeded because they trusted their fellow members and put getting members moving at the heart of their organizing.
They didn’t shy away from telling hard truths, like that Chicago schools were systematically shortchanging Black and Latino students. They set their sights high and built to a strike, even when the legal hurdles were supposed to make that impossible.
No Longer Alone
Ten years later, CTU remains one of the guiding lights of our movement, but it’s no longer so alone.
A slate backed by the Teamsters rank-and-file reform movement has won leadership of that international union for the first time in 25 years. As I write, they are preparing for a national UPS strike. Members of the United Auto Workers have also won the right to elect their top officers, and a new caucus is preparing to challenge longstanding one-party rule.