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AMY GOODMAN: That is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman in New York, with Juan González in Chicago, the place we’re going to remain, as a result of in a serious labor victory, the Chicago Academics Union has reached a tentative contract cope with Chicago Public Faculties after greater than a 12 months of negotiations with no strike or risk of a strike for the primary time in lower than — in additional than a decade. The total membership nonetheless has to vote in the beginning is last. The deal reaffirms sanctuary faculty protections, protects the flexibility to show Black historical past and contains raises for veteran lecturers and extra. This comes amidst assaults on public training by the Trump administration, in addition to considerations about ICE brokers concentrating on Chicago colleges.
For extra, we’re joined in Chicago by Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Academics Union, additionally wrote the afterword to the brand new posthumous memoir by the previous Chicago Academics Union President Karen Lewis titled I Didn’t Come Right here to Lie: My Life and Schooling. It additionally has a foreword by the world-renowned abolitionist, writer and activist, professor Angela Davis.
Stacy Davis Gates, welcome again to Democracy Now! Clarify the contract victory you nearly have secured.
STACY DAVIS GATES: Good morning. Thanks for having me once more.
This contract supplies us with the capability to maneuver our faculty district ahead in a time of Trump. As you famous earlier, the destruction of the Division of Schooling goes to have profound impression on the least of those. This contract supplies a pressure subject of safety for each our LGBTQIA+ college students and our members. It supplies educational freedom to make sure that historical past lecturers like me are capable of train concerning the energy of Reconstruction on this nation, led by enslaved Africans within the first profound common strike that this nation skilled. Past that, this contract is a manner wherein our immigrant college students and their households can discover security in sending their kids to colleges, the place we’ll shield them, as we’ve already. The collective bargaining settlement is a really highly effective instrument to make use of, particularly on this second, to make sure that individuals are protected, to make sure that their capability to benefit from the public good has some guardrails on it.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Stacy Davis Gates, may you discuss a number of the different proposals you have been capable of win, together with extra funding for sports activities packages and sustainable group colleges?
STACY DAVIS GATES: Completely. Thanks for that query. Dyett Excessive College within the Washington Park neighborhood of Chicago was closed by Rahm Emanuel, who was the mayor of Chicago. Actually, he closed over 50 colleges at one time within the metropolis. We, in coalition with the Kenwood Oakland Group Group, lecturers and grandmothers and alderpeople, like Jeanette Taylor, they went on a starvation strike. And in that starvation strike, they received the reopening of their colleges. Our union then, in coalition with this group coalition, took their must the bargaining desk and established group colleges. We now have expanded the variety of group colleges as an effort to assist and construction areas that don’t have to shut, however present alternative. This 12 months, Dyett’s boys’ basketball crew is celebrating a state championship.
Once more, this collective bargaining settlement supplies area for progress. We now have a analysis system within the Chicago Public Faculties that has deprivileged each Black kids and Black lecturers of a really well-rounded expertise. What we’ve finished is marginalized these impacts and created pathways to get extra Black lecturers into the system. Whereas companies like Goal are strolling away from embracing Black employees and Black workers, we’re offering pathways to assist extra of them.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And will you speak concerning the issue of the negotiations? Clearly, this was an uncommon scenario, as a result of the present mayor, Brandon Johnson, was an organizer along with your union, so the union placing towards this mayor, who was so near them, would have been a troublesome scenario. How have been you capable of maneuver with the negotiations with the Chicago Public Faculties and the Mayor’s Workplace?
STACY DAVIS GATES: The ability of our solidarity has been most vividly illustrated in our capability to strike. Karen Lewis led one in 2012 that was maybe one of the crucial galvanizing moments of our nation’s labor historical past. However past that, what we’ve finished is that we’ve finished a number of issues. We’ve resisted the impacts of privatization and created areas, by means of the strike, by means of negotiating, by means of the coalition area, to create energy, energy that allows us to do quite a lot of issues. Sure, we are able to battle. We do this very effectively. And it’s that battle, the fairness that we construct in that wrestle, that has enabled this chance to push for one thing that has been extra transformative. We’ve modified and enshrined on this contract a budgeting system that creates fairness, that’s embedded in ensuring that kids who go to highschool on the South and the West Sides of the town, that their budgets are prioritized in a reparatory method. That’s on this contract. That’s not simply constructed by means of the negotiating desk. That’s constructed by means of group coalition. That’s constructed by means of supporting starvation strikes. That’s constructed by means of taking it to the picket line. It’s constructed by means of daring, unapologetic love for our metropolis’s kids.
AMY GOODMAN: I used to be questioning should you may touch upon Karen Lewis. You wrote the afterword to the brand new memoir by the previous CTU president, Chicago Academics Union president, Karen Lewis, the ebook titled I Didn’t Come Right here to Lie: My Life and Schooling. It’s additionally acquired a foreword by Angela Davis. Are you able to discuss her life and legacy as a transformative chief and what classes you suppose are key to attract upon now?
STACY DAVIS GATES: That may be a great query. Thanks.
Karen Lewis is the blueprint for the kind of management that we’d like on this very second. Karen Lewis took the helm of the Chicago Academics Union when Rahm Emanuel was the mayor of this metropolis, a mayor that used the general public good for the wealthy. Actually, he and Elon palled round right here in Chicago. We had a mayor that foreclosed on public training by shutting down 50 colleges on Black kids on the South and West Sides of the town. We had a mayor who lined up the homicide of a Black teenager within the metropolis. We confronted a really well-funded, neoliberal institution that was hell-bent on marginalizing every thing that we wanted to have life and life extra abundantly.
Karen Lewis organized. She discovered her confederates and the group and organizations just like the Kenwood Oakland and other people like Jitu Brown and Northside Motion for Justice, and constructed a motion that was primarily based on giving Chicagoans what they deserve, as a result of should you give Chicagoans what they deserve, the youngsters of this metropolis are rooted and anchored in that. And so, what I’d say on this second is that Karen Lewis was fearless. Karen Lewis checked out energy and laughed. Karen Lewis created area for coalition. And Karen Lewis led with humility and with a fearlessness of affection, care and legacy.
AMY GOODMAN: Stacy Davis Gates, thanks a lot for being with us, president of the Chicago Academics Union, becoming a member of us from Chicago.
Once we come again, an replace on Burma’s huge earthquake. Over — effectively, hundreds have died. Support teams say there’s nonetheless huge want. In the meantime, with the gutting of USAID, the place is america in serving to be a part of with different nations around the globe? Stick with us.
