Chicago

Will Chicago Get A Memorial To Honor The Survivors Of Police Torture?

June 17, 2019 Vaidya Gullapalli, Theappeal.org Create! Chicago, police brutality, Reparations

In 2015, the Chicago City Council passed a reparations ordinance. That ordinance, the first of its kind in the country, was the city’s official acknowledgment that Jon Burge, a Chicago police commander, and detectives under his command, “systematically engaged in acts of torture, physical abuse and coercion of African American men and women at Area 2 and 3 Police Headquarters from 1972 through 1991.” The ordinance spelled out the gruesome nature of that torture—electric shock boxes or cattle prods to genitals, lips, and ears; suffocation with plastic bags; mock executions with guns; beatings with telephone books and rubber hoses...

Chicago: Indigenous & Climate Activists Disrupt Chase Meeting

May 23, 2019 Staff, Risingtidenorthamerica.org Resist! Chicago, Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples, Protests

JPMorgan Chase is banking on climate change and fossil fuels. We’re banking on fierce resistance to Big Oil, Big Coal and the Wall street banks funding them. Today, Indigenous and climate activists converged at the JPMorgan Chase Tower in Chicago to disrupt the mega-banks annual shareholder meeting. JPMorgan Chase is the worst funder of fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) in the world. Since the Paris climate talks in 2015, they’ve put almost $200 billion dollars into fossil fuels. (That’s right, $200 BILLION with a big “B.”)

“We Demand Food For Thought”: UIC Grad Workers On Strike For Living Wages And Respect

March 27, 2019 Hannah Steinkopf-Frank, Inthesetimes.com Resist! Chicago, Higher Education, Strikes, Workers

In front of the historic Jane Addams Hull-House Museum on March 19, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) graduate workers began an indefinite strike. The union is joining a national movement of higher education employees demanding livable wages and better working conditions in the often-unstable field of academia. The strike is the result of more than a year of negotiations between UIC Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) Local 6297 and the university administration. Since September 2018, over 1,500 teaching and graduate assistants have worked without a contract.

Teaching Assistants Go On Strike At University Of Illinois At Chicago

March 20, 2019 Dawn Rhodes, Chicagotribune.com Resist! Chicago, Higher Education, Strikes

Graduate student employees at the University of Illinois at Chicago, saying they don’t earn a living wage, went on strike Tuesday after more than a year of contract negotiations failed to produce a new work agreement. Graduate and teaching assistants formed picket lines outside of several east campus buildings and held an afternoon rally and march. “We have students going to food pantries and going on food assistance,” said doctoral candidate Hailee Yoshizaki-Gibbons, 33.

Teachers At Four Chicago Charter School Campuses Walk Out

February 7, 2019 Kristina Benitis, Wsws.org Resist! Charter Schools, Chicago, Protests, Teachers

With contract talks stalled after nine months of negotiations, 175 teachers at four Civitas campuses, part of Chicago International Charter School (CICS), walked out on strike Tuesday at 6 a.m. Teachers and staff are seeking raises, smaller class sizes, a reduction in healthcare costs and more support staff including social workers. The talks broke down over the demand for 8 percent raises in the first year. CICS says it would accept the proposal only by eliminating crucial support staff, like social workers and counselors.

Officers Accused Of Abuses Are Leading Chicago Police’s “Implicit Bias” Training Program

February 4, 2019 Debbie Southorn and Sarah Lazare, Theintercept.com Educate! Abuse, Chicago, Police, Reform

SERGIO HERRERA, A Chicago police officer, was accused in a 2010 lawsuit of teaming up with another officer to mace and beat a black man for no reason. The man was sitting in his parked car when Herrera’s colleague approached the vehicle. As the man went to retrieve his identification, the officer told him to “cuff up,” at which point Herrera entered the fray, spraying the man with mace according to the lawsuit. Both officers then allegedly proceeded to throw the man to the ground, strike him in the head with handcuffs, and dig their knees into his back. When the man asked for medical assistance, his pleas were ignored. Instead, the police took him to the station.

Teachers In Denver, Oakland And Chicago Move Toward Strikes, Others Protest

January 28, 2019 Samantha Winslow and Dan DiMaggio, Labornotes.org Resist! Chicago, Class Struggle, Denver, New Economy, Oakland, Protests, Strikes, Teachers

Who will pay for a 5 percent raise, smaller classes, and more nurses, librarians, and counselors for the Chicago public schools? “Rich people,” Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Stacy Gates told the press. Their contract expires in June. Meanwhile, fresh off the first charter school strike in history, the union set a February 5 strike date at another Chicago charter network. Five hundred CTU members in the Acero charter network struck for a week in December, winning smaller classes and salary increases that align them with their counterparts in the Chicago Public Schools. Four schools in the Chicago International Charter School network could be next.

Chicago Police Forced To Respect People With Disabilities

January 22, 2019 Nissa Rhee, Chicagoreporter.com Create! Chicago, People with Disabilities, Police, Reform

When Eric J. Wilkins was pulled over by the Chicago police in the spring of 2002, he was on edge. His older brother was sitting in prison at the time, a victim of Jon Burge-era police torture. And Wilkins, himself, says the police had roughed him up after he had been shot in the back and leg, just three years prior. The officers who pulled his car over in 2002 told him to get out. Wilkins asked them if he could get his wheelchair from the backseat. The officers, Wilkins says, told him there was no need. And then they picked him up like a baby.

Chicago Teachers Win First Charter Strike In History

December 17, 2018 By Barbara Madeloni, Portside.org Resist! Charter Schools, Chicago, Strikes, Teachers

In a charter network where 90 percent of the students are Latino, strikers won an agreement to designate all its schools as “sanctuary schools,” off-limits to immigration police. This article, originally published on December 4 as the strike began, has since been updated. --Editors. Chicago teachers are leading the way again. They have declared victory in the first charter school strike in U.S. history. The four-day strike included 550 teachers and paraprofessionals who work at all 15 Chicago charter schools in the Acero charter chain. It ended December 9 with an agreement that includes smaller class sizes and salary increases that will align charter teachers with their counterparts in the Chicago Public Schools.

First Charter School Strike in US History Authorized In Chicago

November 4, 2018 Rebecca Burns, In These Times Resist! Charter Schools, Chicago, Strike, Teachers

On Tuesday, teachers at 15 Chicago charter schools voted 98 percent to authorize a strike as they continue to bargain a contract with Acero Schools, the largest unionized charter network in the city. On Friday, four locations of the Chicago International Charter Schools (CICS) will take a strike authorization vote. And teachers at nine other Chicago charter networks are also in contract negotiations, and could similarly opt to take strikes votes in the coming months.

After Rahm’s Destruction, Can Chicago Creative A Cooperative Economy?

October 15, 2018 Matt Stannard, Occupy.com Create! Chicago, Cooperatives, Finance and the Economy, Politics, Revisionism

When Rahm Emanuel announced last month that he would not seek a third term as mayor of Chicago, he broke no hearts among people opposed to neoliberal privatization and the power of finance capital. In Chicago under Emanuel, as the editors of the 2016 anthology Neoliberal Chicago write, “neoliberalism led officials to privatize everything from parking meters to schools, gut regulations and social services, and promote gentrification wherever possible.” To take just one lurid example, Emanuel’s Chicago “privatized janitorial services for our schools,” organizer Amara Enyia told me, only to end up with rodent-infested schools, literally “rats and mice running around in classrooms. Those schools had to be closed and cleaned. This is what happens when you privatize services.”

Trombones On The Picket Line: Lyric Opera Orchestra On Strike For The First Time In 50 Years

October 12, 2018 By Amelia Diehl, Inthesetimes.com Resist! Arts, Chicago, Strikes

On Tuesday, the music stopped for the Lyric Opera of Chicago just as the company began its 64th season. Orchestra members walked out on strike over a new proposed contract that would cut pay, reduce membership and performances, and cancel radio broadcasts. As a result of the strike, opera performances for the rest of the week have been canceled. Yet the music hasn’t stopped entirely: brass musicians took to the picket line with their instruments on Tuesday afternoon, playing tunes while performers and supporters marched outside the Civic Opera House in downtown Chicago. Morale among the strikers has been “tremendous,” says Lewis Kirk, who has played bassoon in the orchestra for 31 years.

Unreasonable Fear Blocks Our View Of Black Humanity

October 11, 2018 By Natalie Moore, Wbez.org Resist! Chicago, Laquan McDonald, police brutality

The slain black teenager experienced trouble in his short life, details an attorney for the white police officer used in his defense. None of that should’ve mattered in those moments Van Dyke fatally shot the boy 16 times in 2014. When Van Dyke took the stand at the Cook County criminal courthouse, he recounted McDonald’s “eyes were just bugging out of his head.” The officer’s testimony of a menacing and mindless McDonald was reminiscent of degrading caricatures of African Americans in popular culture dating back more than a century. Did he imagine a slice of watermelon in his hand to complete the coon racist trope?

City Colleges Of Chicago Workers Hit Picket Lines To Force Contract Talks

October 10, 2018 Kate McGee, Wbez.org Resist! Chicago, Class Struggle, Higher Education, Workers Rights and Jobs

Three unions that represent faculty and staff at City Colleges of Chicago say the college’s bargaining team will not come to the table to negotiate contracts. The unions said they plan to picket all City Colleges of Chicago board meetings until contract agreements are reached. In a statement, a college spokesperson disputed that accusation, saying the system has held more than 40 meetings with seven collective bargaining units over the past year. “City Colleges has been responding and will continue to respond to contract proposals.” Administrators also said they value the unions and that they “are working to reach mutually beneficial contract agreements.” The unions represent hundreds of employees, including professors, clerical staff, and security guards.

Fifty Years Ago, 35,000 Chicago Students Walked Out Of Their Classrooms In Protest. They Changed CPS Forever.

October 10, 2018 Tanner Howard, Chicagoreader.com Strategize! Chicago, History, Protests, Student Activism, Students

It's 1968 and 18-year-old Pemon Rami, a recent graduate of Wendell Phillips Academy High School, stands in front of the Umoja Black Student Center in Bronzeville. He stares off into the distance, quiet, determined. Behind him, a poster with an illustration of Malcolm X preaches unstinting devotion to radical change, challenging viewers: "He was ready! Are you?" It's 2018, and 68-year-old Rami stands before a photo of his younger self. Plenty has changed in those intervening years. A half century has softened his features and grayed his short-cut hair, but his presence remains self-assured. Though his own revolutionary moment has long since passed, he still believes that revolution belongs in the hands of the young.

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