Teachers Union in Chicago to Extend Strike Into 2nd Week

By MONICA DAVEY and STEVEN YACCINO

Published: September 16, 2012

The decision, which was certain to infuriate City Hall and frustrate parents already weary from juggling day care for a week, dashed earlier hopes that hundreds of public schools around the city might reopen on Monday. It came as a setback to the union’s bargaining team, too, which felt it had secured an agreement its leaders might accept, even if it did not quell every concern voiced at protests across the city over the past week.

“I do what they tell me to do,” Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, said on Sunday, after a majority of nearly 800 union leaders — the House of Delegates — opted to meet again on Tuesday rather than immediately lift a strike in the nation’s third-largest school system. “There’s all kinds of stuff that they’re concerned about,” Ms. Lewis said of the delegates’ reluctance to accept the negotiated deal. “This is the deal we got.” Continue reading “Teachers Union in Chicago to Extend Strike Into 2nd Week”