Tens of thousands of teachers are striking in Chicago

The Chicago Teachers, uniting about 26 thousand people, announced a strike. As ITAR-TASS reports, the teachers did not agree to the conditions of a new collective labor agreement proposed by the city authorities. As a result of a call to the lesson, 350 thousand schoolchildren were not heard today.

The validity of the previous five -year labor contract has already expired. For several months, the parties conducted negotiations, but they could not agree on issues about salaries and medical support. In addition, the teachers opposed the Chicago, which was introduced by the mayor of Chicago Ram Emmanuel, the ex-head of the apparatus of the White House, the new system for evaluating their activities, in which the salaries of teachers will depend on the academic performance of schoolchildren. As noted in the trade union, as a result of this reform, hundreds of teachers in schools in dysfunctional areas may lose a significant part of income.

The average salary of the Chicago teacher is now about 70 thousand dollars a year. The city authorities proposed increasing their earnings by 3% in the first year of the new contract and 2% annually over the next three years, which will cost the city budget about $ 400 million. “In the current difficult financial conditions, this proposal was quite serious,” said the representative of the mayor's office David Vital.

The trade union does not disclose which requires an increase in salary. However, it is known that at the beginning of the negotiations, teachers asked to increase it by 19% during the first year of the contract.

The last time the Chicago Teacher’s trade union went on strike in 1987.