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Saturday, September 15, 2012

In Chicago, The Teachers' Last Stand

In February of last year, Rahm Emanuel was running for mayor of Chicago when neighboring Wisconsin exploded. The state’s governor, Republican Scott Walker, had introduced a budget-repair bill stripping most collective bargaining rights from public sector workers. Democratic legislators fled the state to avoid having to vote on the bill, and unions and activists descended on Madison to occupy the statehouse. Pulsing throngs of protesters filled the rotunda, its dome echoing with chants of “Hey HEY! Ho HO! Scott Walker’s got to go!”

At the time, Emanuel condemned Walker’s approach: “There’s no respect, no sense of cooperation, no sense that we all have a vested interest in working something out,” he told CNN. Emanuel, legendary for his profane combativeness, had spent his mayoral campaign cultivating a more conciliatory image. “We’re gonna deal with our fiscal issues by being honest with each other, straightforward and on a level of respect to work out the agreements that are necessary to put our fiscal house in order so our economy can grow,” he said.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mandate.
Back to work on Monday or you are fired. Severance decided by time accrued.

Anonymous said...

yea and let your performance be rated on something you have no control over. You get hired to work a job, your employer wants to hire you for the position and offers you a package that you both agree on. Then jobs become scarce and the employer tells you that you have to work an additional 20 min a day to help take up slack, but no compensation, as they use that excuse to then tell you times are tight your benefits are reduced, as they spend money on another senseless program or study, sorta like the city of Salisbury and their public employees or the county. Just because they are called public servants does not mean you can treat them like crap.