Chicago’s new mayor, former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has begun his reign by declaring a ruthless war on the city’s unionized workers and teachers. Determined to balance Chicago’s budget shortfall on the backs of working people, Emanuel, a multi-millionaire, has threatened labor with layoffs and pay cuts. Emanuel has also supported the Chicago Public School Board’s decision to deny teachers’ raises, all the while giving themselves higher salaries than their predecessors. These actions have sparked angry protests in the city, bringing out hundreds of teachers and workers who are fighting this assault by Emanuel’s anti-worker administration.
Chicago’s city workers, who had already accepted pay freezes and dozens of unpaid furlough days, are now threatened by the mayor with over 600 job cuts if the unions refuse to accept a long list of crippling concessions, including less pay for hours worked and cuts in overtime. This attempt to strong-arm Chicago labor was all the more appalling following the recent release of Emanuel’s own public assets. Apparently, the mayor’s wealth is so huge and diversified that experts are having a hard time identifying his exact worth. However, the Chicago Tribune has estimated that amount to be somewhere between $6.2 million and $16.6 million.
The millionaire mayor has also put Chicago’s teachers in the crosshairs. While constantly attacking the Chicago Teachers Union, the mayor backed the school board in withholding a scheduled 4 percent raise for teachers. Saying that there are not enough funds to cover the pay increases, the CPS executives instead awarded themselves salary increases, in some instances dwarfing their predecessors’ pay by tens of thousands of dollars. They have also given themselves lavish bonuses. The mayor, who is fully committed to class warfare, gave the school executives’ new salaries the thumbs-up.
In late June, over 1,000 protesters took to the streets of Chicago to send a message to the school board, Emanuel and all those who stand to benefit from this assault on teachers and city workers. “They are giving raises to administrators but not to teachers,” said one high school teacher. “We deserve it. What have they done to prove they deserve it? They have done nothing…It’s outrageous.”
But the demonstrations were not aimed solely at the school executives or Emanuel; the protesters recognized that the problem lies within the exploitative capitalist system itself. The demonstrations moved from the Chicago Board of Education building and converged onto Bank of America’s downtown offices as well as the Chicago Board of Trade. These two powerhouses have taken in a huge amount of public funds at the expense of working people. Bank of America, through an interest-swap deal with the CPS executives, makes $36 million every year off the schools. Demonstrators carried signs reading, “Students before bankers,” and “Wasn’t the bailout enough?”
Workers all across the Midwest have faced the same kinds of attacks. State and city officials want to smash all forms of workers’ power at the behest of their capitalist masters in order to clear the way for them to reap ever-growing profits. A key obstacle for the capitalists on the path to completely subjugate the working class is the unions and their organizing and bargaining powers won through over a century of struggle. Working people must continue to fight against those who would take away hard-won gains until the rotten capitalist system can be replaced by a socialist system in which the rights of workers are guaranteed. Emanuel’s war on workers is a symptom of the capitalist disease, and the struggle for socialism is the only cure.
