December 4, 2012:
Teachers in Community Unit
District 300 reached a deal with the school board late Tuesday to end a one-day
walkout in the large far northwest suburban school district.
Talks had broken down late Monday, prompting
the district's more than 1,200 teachers to go on strike Tuesday and leaving more
than 20,000 students out of class.
District 300, based in Carpentersville, was
the latest among at least six Chicago-area school systems — including Chicago
Public Schools — whose teachers have gone on strike this school year. Many of
the same issues — class size, pay and benefits, equity of compensation compared
to similar districts — have been repeated, as school boards seek new ways to
control spending amid new mandates from Springfield and more modest tax receipts
than before the economic downturn.
Tuesday, much of the public back-and-forth
between the union and district officials was over class size. Currently,
elementary classes are capped at 33 to 37 students, according to district
figures, but some high school classes top 40 students, teachers said.
But district officials said they offered a
deal to teachers on Monday in which class sizes would be capped next year at 27
students in kindergarten through second grade and 30 students in grades three to
five. The plan would also add 60 new teachers throughout the district.
Williamson, however, said those class sizes
aren’t low enough to satisfy teachers. He also said teachers want an increase in
their base salary.
The district counters that the union returned
with new salary demands after the school board made its offer to lower class
sizes. The district say it has offered teachers raises of 3 percent this year, 2
percent next year and 3 percent in the following — figures that include both
base pay and “step increase,” additional raises that teachers in most
Chicago-area districts receive each year for adding another year of seniority.
Of the teachers strikes that have occurred so
far this year in the Chicago area, Evergreen Park District 124’s was the
longest, lasting 10 days.
Chicago Public School teachers were off the
job for seven days, and Lake Forest High School teachers for five days. Strikes
in Crystal Lake-based Prairie Grove District 46 and Highland Park-based North
Shore District 112 also each lasted for one day before deals were reached.
my comment: So the 20 thousand students in
Carpentersville are back in class and the sixth teacher strike in the Chicago
area this year alone has been settled. Also today, the International Longshore
and Warehouse Workers Local 63 ended their strike.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/05/us-usa-port-losangeles-idUSBRE8B40MP20121205
Traditionally, a strike is
intended to be costly so that management will decide that paying the strikers a
greater rate is inexpensive by comparison. Notice that, from the strikers’
perspective, the most costly, damaging and wasteful behavior on their part
provides the greatest shield for their rate demand.
Notice too that there is no reason for the strikers to
mollify the cost, damage and waste they cause since it is a burden that falls on
others and not on them.
The ILWW local 63 has 800 clerks who struck the ports
of Los Angeles and Long Beach, through which 40 percent of all our container
cargo flows. Other unions would not cross their picket lines and Southern
California lost a billion dollars per day for the duration. Think about that:
Their 8-day strike caused $10 million of loss per ILWW63 clerk!
The world has changed – if a Home Depot distribution
center in Illinois orders a container of hammers from China, the 40 foot
container is filled and locked shut in Shanghai. It is then moved by truck,
ship, rail and truck to its destination. All the “paperwork” is handled by email
between the Chinese factory and the Illinois warehouse.
The 800 clerks really didn’t have a role in the 21st
Century. The intermodal transfer and customs logistics could be addressed with
some computer integration. The 800 should have been replaced with six software
engineers.
But the mentality of union bosses is notoriously
unimaginative and they would not honestly address the influence of technology.
Instead, their operating assumption was that the work of the 800 clerks is
essential and so, they posit, it must be assumed by clerks in China and an
“outsourcing” lie was invented.
Instead of economic efficiency and the greater good,
the Luddites of the ILWW opted for featherbedding. For each clerk, $10 million
of needless cost was imposed on other people. So they got their way and will
continue in their meaningless jobs indefinitely. And that is why hammers at Home
Depot are more expensive than they should be.
The burden of a teachers’ strike is not as clearly denominated in dollars. The cost, damage and waste threatened by the LFEA included:
..missed instruction
..homecoming weekend
..state championship football
..college application jeopardy
..angst
But, like the ILWW that caused
$10 million of cost for third parties per striking clerk, the LFEA demonstrated
that it desired to inflict so much injury on our students that their salary demands
would seem small by comparison. If we cooperate in their extortion, we can
expect to be extorted again and again.
The first LFEA strike at LFHS was 3 months ago. They
got a 4-year contract, so the next LFEA strike at LFHS will be 45 months from
now.
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