Two-week teacher strike in Illinois ends

Members of the Harlem Federation of Teachers in Illinois were back at work Sept. 3 after nearly two weeks on strike. The local, which represents about 500 teachers, reached an agreement Sept. 2 with the Harlem School District that ended the strike and allowed classes to resume.

The local went on strike Aug. 23 after months of trying to reach a fair compromise with the school board. The strike ended when the board accepted a union proposal to move to binding arbitration. The main issue to be decided by the arbitrator is the salary schedule that will determine the amount of pay increases for teachers in the second and third years of the agreement.

The Harlem school board’s contract proposal would dismantle the teachers’ salary schedule and change a formula that was fought for back in the 1960s. The drastic change would erode the salary schedule and make salaries less competitive over the years.

“Young teachers would lose an outrageous amount of money throughout their careers under this proposal,” says HFT president Lynn Kearney. “Less competitive salaries will make it harder for the district to attract good teachers.”

The union’s financial analysis showed that if the board would accept the HFT’s three-year contract proposal, the district would still have

$1.5 million to spend however it wished. After the strike began, the school board quickly moved to cancel teachers’ health insurance. “We are standing strong together,” Kearney says. “Our teachers realize what we’re asking for is reasonable and that the board is trying to break us down. We will not be broken.”

Survey shows slowdown in public employee salaries

States have slashed the number of public employees in key safety positions, and workers’ salaries are at a standstill—a result of continuing budget pressures plaguing the states—according to the 2004 AFT Public Employees Compensation Survey. The survey shows that states have significantly reduced salary increases, which have plummeted from 3.63 percent in 2002-2003 to 0.45 percent in 2003-2004. This compares to overall U.S. salary increases of more than 3 percent for 2003-2004, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics information.

The survey also shows that public employees with union representation, by and large, earn higher salaries than nonunion public employees, mainly the result of collective bargaining rights. Of the 44 surveyed job titles, 41 earned more in states with collective bargaining than those without. The average weighted mean salary for public employees in collective bargaining states is nearly 20 percent more than for those without collective bargaining.

“At a time when we are relying on public employees to redouble their efforts to protect our homeland and provide essential services, states are putting the brakes on salaries and laying off critical personnel,” says AFT president Edward J. McElroy.

Chicago union pioneer Norman Swenson retires

for a man who served time in the cook County Jail, Norman Swenson has done pretty well for himself. Swenson’s time in the clink clocked in at 30 days in 1971, with a subsequent week’s-long stint four years later.

A respected pioneer of the higher education labor movement, Swenson spent 39 years as president of the two-year college chapter of the Chicago Teachers Union, later named the Cook County College Teachers Union (CCCTU). He retired this year, although his commitment to the union lives on as he continues as chief negotiator for Local 1600.

Swenson led the union in seven strikes between 1966 and 1978. He won the first public employee collective bargaining contract in Chicago and established the first 12-hour teaching load for community college faculty in the United States. He won increased hiring opportunities for women and minorities and, as the CCCTU experienced success, inspired other public workers in Chicago, including firefighters and transit operators, to organize.

Swenson recalls when “strike” could be synonymous with “arrest.” “You could be jailed, fined, fired,” he remembers. Now, the law protects union members and makes it possible to negotiate fair contracts. He boasts that CCCTU’s Local 1600 “has never lost a strike”; he has negotiated and/or supervised some 100 collective bargaining agreements.