Essay about The Chicago Teachers Union Strike and What Came out of It

This was the country’s first railroad strike in nation’s history as well as the first general strike. Strikes and violence spawned briefly, paralyzed the country’s commerce, and led the governors in ten states to mobilize militias to reopen rail traffic. Northern railroads were stills struggling from the Financial Panic of 1873, which led to cutting salaries and cutting wages. Another thing is cutbacks promoted

Pullman Strike: The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States on May 11, 1894. The American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman Company, and the government of the United States, President Grover Cleveland. The issue began in Pullman, Chicago, on May 11 according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike.org about “4,000 factory employees of the Pullman Company began a strike in response to lowered wages.” According to https://www.britannica.com “In response to financial reverses related to the economic depression that began in 1893, the Pullman Palace Car Company, a manufacturer of railroad cars, cut the already low wages of its workers by about 25 percent but did not introduce corresponding reductions in rents and other charges at Pullman.” Most factory workers who built Pullman train cars lived in Pullman Chicago, Illinois. George Pullman wanted to design it as a model community. He had a different people working for him. He hired African-Americans for certain jobs at the company. Pullman also hired young, single women to be his secretary for him, which at the time was very unlikely for women and African-American men to work at all. He also used ads and other things to help bring workers to his company. The company laid off workers and lowered wages, and did not change rents, and the workers called for a strike. There were many reasons for the strike, for example not enough democracy in the Pullman, bad water and gas

April 1st 2016, more than 340 thousand students had to spend the school time in churches, libraries, parks, or other places without teacher. It was an April Fools' Day but the Chicago Teachers' Strike was not a joke. Not long after the first strike in 2012, the Chicago Teachers Union walked out again. Thousands of teachers and their supporters gathered at schools and City Hall, shouting that they protest for low wages and unfair labor practices. Karen Lewis, the CTU President, says that they hope this "act of war" can bring pressure to the governor Bruce Rauner, so that they can have changes like better pensions, fairer raises and more autonomy on school work. Obviously they did not get what they want from the first

In the primary source titled Report on the Chicago Strike of June-July 1894, Thomas W. Heathcoate the writer, shares his experience and struggle during the Chicago Strike of June and July 1894. Even though there is no exact date given in this short account as a reader, I would say that this was written shortly after the strike took place because you can still sense the frustration that Thomas feels. This event just took place and obviously Heathcoate was apart of it so I would also assume that this was written in the same place the strike took place, Chicago. The intended audience that Heathcoate probably had in mine was the American people as a whole. He wanted people to know how bad things were and the reasoning behind the strike. Obviously

To start, the workers had four main reason that cause them to go on strike. The first reason was that the employees were under-rewarded and overwhelming. Their nest reason was that their working hours were unreasonably long. The following reason was the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration, did not really supervise the safety on the work places for the workers. the last reason was

It was such a pleasure to listen to a Eastern Alumni, Ryan Whitlock come in and talk about the struggles and what he does as a job to the class. To begin it was very cool that he had went to Eastern Illinois and had graduated with the same major that I am going for, which was Finance. I liked that he started off by telling us about unions, and about a contracts and how its like in Unions. His keys to success hit home for me, because even though he isn’t in the same field that I am going for, those skills cant be very useful for any person going into the workforce. I couldn’t believe that older men and women act in the way they do. You would think that their childish actions would be stored away once they were out of college and working full-time but as he told us, he sees it still till this day. I found myself relating to him, because in times when people are immature I just find its best to not fight battles with them and rather just sit back and laugh at how things are. I left questioning, as to why wouldn’t they agree to terms in a contract, I feel as though the employer has a pretty good proposal and so therefore why wouldn’t they want to take it. Is it because of greed that this world has come to? In my opinion it is stupid for there to even be a strike. Its really not worth losing the pay or benefits because you feel that the company isn’t presenting a good enough deal. I think to myself, don’t you have a family, wife or expenses that you

This strike would not be the last strike to happen. Many strikes would follow soon after the railroad strike.

Before the case was decided the possible outcomes of who won would have had vastly different impacts. If Friedrichs were to have won, the 23 states that currently have fees for non-union members would have an “immediate impact that unions forego the agency fees and lose revenue.” There would be a massive change if the fees were removed. “Removing agency fees changes the cost of union membership. In California, the real cost now is about $350, the difference between $1,000 in dues and the $650 fees. Without fees, the choice would be between $0 and $1,000, so the cost would rise to $1,000. This increase would encourage uncommitted members to leave and discourage new teachers from joining.” The membership of unions would rapidly decline and not only would they be weaker in bargaining power, negotiations and other duties, they would have a lot less political power. Depending on each person’s point of view, this outcome could potentially be very supported or hated. Along with the member dues, unions need the fees

As you all know a union is an organized group of workers who work together to use their strength and have a voice in their workplace. Through a union, their strength as workers have a right to impact wages, work hours, benefits, workplace health and safety, job training and other work-related issues. (Professionals, 2015) Let’s talk about an important union which has helped many workers that become part of our lives as students. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is a labor union founded in Chicago, Illinois on April 15, 1916. (Teachers, 2015) This union mainly represents teachers and it started gaining its members by 1919 in which by that time it had 100 local affiliates and 11,000 members. (Teachers, 2015) The AFT is a union of professionals

First of all, it messes other people's schedules and lives. To begin it says in source three, Why Is It Rare for Public sector Workers to Go on Strike, it states”Criminals went on rampage after police refused to work” which means that it ruined the lives of the people in the city(which was Boston) and were most likely not apart of the police department. Next it says in source two ,New York School Bus Strike: Sign of

Subversion is defined as “the undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution.” (www.dictionary.com) Since the AFT was forefront with the civil rights movement, they filed a “brief in the historic Brown Vs. Board of Education Topeka that had expelled locals due to the mandate of desegregation.” (www.aft.org) In Addition, to the fight for civil rights the teachers union and its affiliates worked hard towards “collective bargaining agreements from stubborn school boards.” (www.aft.org) During the 60’s, teachers performed strikes and walkouts towards the success for their fight for collective bargaining agreements. The first official strike was made by Professors of universities within the united states and in New York a Walk-out took place for the teachers rights against these agreements. “More than 300 teachers strikes occured throughout that year in representation of its first major walk-out.” As the American Federal Teachers Union made great efforts towards certain rights for their people and society, their members grew tremendously. Within the 10 years following no more than 60,000 group members had joined and by the end of a decade they had 200,00 members apart of the

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) Strike in 2012 affected every single Chicago Public School and their Students in 2012. The strike affected about 600 public schools which is over 350, 000 students. The CTU began negotiating their contract with CPS in November of 2011, but their demands were not met. Since the negotiating did not solve the issue, the Chicago Teachers Union chose to organize a strike for the first time in Chicago in 25 years.

In a regular company, the store must produce what the consumers’ want if they want to generate a profit and continue to stay in business; the consumers normally hold all of the power. Schools, however, are not getting their money or power from their consumers so they have no need to please the consumers and better their product. That type of system takes away the power from the consumer, which is vital for improvement, because without it the producers have no incentive to change their ways. We can recognize this is true due to the fact that there has been little change in the way we have taught school in the last 100 years. The workers are not at fault, the institution is. The institution has made it difficult for teachers to perform well because the institution has no need to be innovative so they don’t encourage or reward teachers for coming up with better and more efficient ways to teach. Public schools feel no need to improve because they will receive enough funding to keep the school running no matter their performance. Giving schools more money based on the school’s grades has given some incentives to the schools, but seeing as that this money is not taken as a profit, the incentive is not truly there

The Pullman Palace Car Company manufactured railroad cards. The workers were not part of a union and lived in the town of Pullman where the company controlled the rent, utilities, and politics. Due to a poor economy, the Pullman Palace Car Company laid off many employees and cut wages for those remaining by 25% and didn’t lower the costs in the town of Pullman. The ARU came on board and made numerous attempts to negotiate with the company and none were successful. I agree with the workers striking considering they were in a lose-lose situation with their employer controlling their entire life – not only their employment but their living conditions. The company had no reason to want to deal with them because they controlled everything.

On December 20, 2005 the Transport Workers Union (TWU) called a strike in the city of New York after initial talks to resolve issues on a new contract with the Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) failed. The strike was, “Over wage rises, health-care and pension costs and the retirement age of employees.” (BBC News, December 20, 2005) The strike went on for three days and was called off on December 22, 2005. The strike was illegal in the state of New York according to the 1967 Taylor Law that prevents municipal employees from going on strikes. The