Both sides in the North Chicago teachers strike have agreed to return to Mayor Bobby Thompson’s office Thursday to negotiate through a federal mediator.
The district said Tuesday that it would “no longer mortgage” the future and again let the union know it had seen the last of 6 percent yearly raises as in the expired three-year contract.
That contract, the district said, forced the school system into such financial straits that it had to vote last spring to dissolve.
The union showed some inclination to budge. It said it will enter the negotiations using the mayor’s proposal for a freeze on wage and health-care benefits, coupled with unspecified cash bonuses.
The union’s apparent flinch comes just a day after it saw some of its community support ebb at a school board meeting.
Richard Banville, president of the South and Yeager Schools’ Parent Teacher Organization, stood up at the Monday night meeting to urge the teachers to return while negotiations continue.
Afterward, Banville said the support the teachers have enjoyed was diminishing as the strike approaches the end of its third week.
But Banville also said his comments were not pro-administration; parents also are unhappy with the school board.
Waddell Brooks, a community activist and the head of the Lake County NAACP, was less magnanimous to the union.
“The teachers know that the store was given away (with the last three-year contract),” he said. “I really don’t understand the teachers. You give raises for a good product. They are delivering less of a good product and want more money.”
Another bad omen for the teachers came Monday when the new school board members the union lobbied to elect Nov. 2-Cynthia Dockery, Yvonne Senter-Crenshaw and Lorraine Thurmond-failed to come out on the union’s side.
Nonetheless, union negotiator Glenn Smith said Tuesday he was buoyed by a half-hour meeting he had Friday with the new board members.
“I thought we had a positive reaction,” he said.
Smith said the dismay of the parents over the strike, which began Oct. 20, was understandable and predictable.
“What they are really saying, if you analyze the situation, is they don’t care anymore. They just want it over,” Smith said.