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player ready...Mayor Harold Washington Wednesday called upon both sides in Chicago`s seven-day school strike to reach a settlement that would allow schools to open by Monday.
It was the mayor`s most direct intervention in the strike so far, though he stopped short of calling negotiators into his office for around-the-clock bargaining, which other Chicago mayors have done during school strikes.
Despite the prod from the mayor, negotiations recessed at 11:15 p.m. Wednesday with the Chicago Teachers Union and the Board of Education hurling accusations at each other.
School board spokesman Bob Saigh issued a statement saying that the negotiations with the teachers union would not resume until 8 p.m. Thursday at the union`s request.
”Board members expressed `shock, outrage and dismay` at the union`s cavalier approach” to ending the strike,” the statement said.
School board President Frank Gardner said the union was apparently not ready to begin marathon bargaining. ”The conduct of the teachers union is appalling,” Gardner said.
In response, Charles Burdeen, spokesman for the Chicago Teachers Union, said: ”Mr. Gardner`s public statements are outrageous lies. . . . (The board`s) continued efforts to deceive the public are a disgrace.”
Burdeen said the offer made by the school board Wednesday was ”the same proposal that caused the strike. I think anger is not the word. I think we`re more astonished than anything else-that this board could totally disregard its students, its parents, its community, everybody.”
Earlier Wednesday, speaking at a 9 p.m. break in negotiations, Gardner had said progress was being made.
But even then Gardner had said he did not share the mayor`s optimism for opening schools Monday. ”We`d certainly like to (open schools Monday),”
Gardner said. But, he said, the two sides were still far apart on monetary issues.
Gardner said negotiators had made progress on non-monetary items and were close to agreement on those items.
”There`s no reason for us to consider going home tonight,” he said-a little more than two hours before the talks recessed.
Tom Reece, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union, and Melvin Wilson, union treasurer, offered a far more pessimistic assessment of the negotiations. ”We feel we`re in the same place,” Reece said.
The union team said the board had offered one change in its proposal to the teachers. ”They saved enough money to offer to restore the three days that were cut off,” Reece said. ”We rejected that proposal. We are on strike for an acceptable contract.”
The board budget had cut employees ` salaries 1.7 percent by eliminating three days from the school year.
Despite those comments, union officials said they plan to continue negotiating with board members.
Earlier Wednesday, Gardner rejected a school watchdog group`s proposal that the board juggle funds to come up with money for a pay raise.
Negotiations resumed Wednesday at the Chicago Board of Education offices, 1819 W. Pershing Rd., after a three-day hiatus.
School board members said that if necessary, they would bargain continuously with leaders of 21 striking unions, but they gave no hint that they would yield to the unions` current salary demands.
The 29,000-member teachers union, by far the largest of the 21 striking unions, is seeking a two-year contract providing a 10 percent pay raise the first year and a 5 percent raise the second year.
School observers said the union might lower its wage demands somewhat but is not prepared to accept the school board`s proposals.
The board budget had cut employees` salaries 1.7 percent by eliminating three days from the school year.
Strikers and others argue that the board could juggle funds in its $1.88 billion annual budget to get the money for pay raises.
Clark Burrus, an influential board member, joined with Gardner in rejecting that approach.
”We have a challenge on whether to make cuts in essential services to fund a raise and open the schools or not do that and leave the schools closed and wait for pressure to build so that pressure encourages employees to return,” Burrus said.
In the eight previous Chicago school strikes since 1969, just the opposite occurred: The unions held fast and public pressure forced the board to yield.
While calling for nonstop negotiations, Washington said: ”I think the board and union are beginning to feel the heat. I am urging both parties to stay at that table and open those schools Monday.”
The mayor discussed an early solution to the strike after meeting with a group of parents who urged him to intervene in the bargaining by demanding nonstop negotiations.
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The parents` group called for classes to resume by Monday. The strike has kept 430,000 public school students out of class.
Asked whether there is a ”realistic” chance schools could reopen Monday, Washington responded: ”Do I think this is a possibility? Yes. There is a strong commitment here to see that schools open as soon as possible. I am telling both sides to stay at the bargaining table and talk, talk, talk and negotiate, negotiate and negotiate.”
Later, Washington`s press secretary, Alton Miller, said the mayor had no inside information on terms of a possible settlement. ”There are no secrets,” Miller said.
Charles Burdeen, spokesman for the teachers union, said, ”I just wonder if it wasn`t a matter of being hopeful that things would be resolved.”
Burdeen added that the union and its president, Jacqueline Vaughn,
”would love to get everything settled over the weekend, but it`s up to the board.”
Robert Saigh, spokesman for the school board, said, ”The board has always been willing and available to negotiate the quickest possible end to the strike.”
Vaughn sounded mildly optimistic when she entered the negotiating session Wednesday afternoon. She said the chances of a settlement had improved
”because we`re coming back to the table.”
The two sides agreed on a truce of sorts between 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday when picket lines will be shut down at 23 district offices so striking employees can pick up paychecks for the Labor Day holiday. Although school was not in session on Labor Day, it is one of the holidays for which employees are paid.
School officials said that because the one-day paychecks will include the normal deductions for a full pay period, they will amount to only 63 to 89 cents each.
An event scheduled for Friday could increase public pressure for a settlement. A coalition of community and citizens` groups has scheduled an
”end the strike rally” outside the school board`s offices, hoping to attract 10,000 people.
In maintaining a tough stance against concessions, the board Wednesday issued a detailed statement disputing the Chicago Panel on Public School Policy and Finance, which argued that the board could give employees a 4 percent raise and restore the three canceled school days.
G. Alfred Hess Jr., the group`s executive director, contended this could be accomplished without affecting educational services by cutting $32.9 million in other services plus trimming $660,000 more from the school budget. Gardner, Burrus, board member Winnie Slusser, and Barbara Peck, the school financial officer, attended a press conference to attack the proposal. ”In terms of his expenditure cuts, Mr. Hess has demonstrated either an abysmal ignorance of the facts or has chosen to willfully ignore them,”
Gardner said. ”Mr. Hess has placed himself in a `settlement-at-any-price`
position.”
Burrus added that ”if we did not challenge it (Hess`s proposals) the lack of that challenge would give credibility to that report.”
Gardner said that in coming up with $32.9 million in budget cuts, Hess sought to abolish some programs required by law, sought to finance pay raises with government grants earmarked for specific non-salary projects and double- and triple-counted employees whose positions he said could be eliminated.