More Chaos Coming

It was bound to happen. Big Blue politicians shut the schools down as part of the war against the Orange Man. Now they're trying to reopen things. Reopening bars and restaurants isn't too hard--the owners and employees are on the same page. On the other hand reopening government schools, well ...

The government teachers are all unionized, and the unions recognized a good thing very quickly. Zooming it in is a lot easier than dealing with kids in person, and the pay is just as good. Now the unions have the school districts over a barrel. You want us to return to in-person teaching? What's it worth to us?

This afternoon it was reported that the Chicago Teachers Union voted overwhelmingly to strike rather than return to in-person teaching, as ordered by the school board. The teachers don't "feel safe" yet, and don't want to return until they do. So what's the school board going to do? They can bluster about illegal strikes and so forth, but this is a mess for them. They better not look to the new DC regime for help, nor to the State. The teachers unions are the backbone of Blue reelection campaigns.

To one degree or another this will be happening around the country, as major Blue cities spiral downward into insolvency and ungovernability.

Here's the Wikipedia entry for the head of the Chicago Teachers Union, Jesse Sharkey. What parent with an ounce of sense would allow their child's education to be held hostage by this character?

Jesse Sharkey (born 1970) is an American schoolteacher and labor leader in Chicago. From 2010 to 2014, he was the Vice President of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). In October 2014, he became acting President of the CTU after Karen Lewis stepped down as President due to illness. In May 2019, he and other members of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) were re-elected to their leadership positions with approximately two-thirds of the vote.

Sharkey grew up in rural Maine. He was raised by his mother, who was an elementary school teacher at the local school. He won a National Merit Scholarship and attended Brown University where he majored in modern American history. After graduating, he took an organizing job with the United Steelworkers in North Carolina.

He returned to Brown and earned his Master of Arts in Teaching. He then met his wife while teaching high school social studies in the Providence Public School District. The two moved to Chicago; his wife initially was an associate editor of In These Times, a leftist magazine before taking a job with leftist publisher Haymarket Books.

Sharkey taught at Chicago Vocational Career Academy (CVCA). During his first year of teaching, he suffered a brain hemorrhage at school and was taken to the hospital. After a 12-hour surgery, he eventually recovered to near full strength and returned to the classroom. After three years at CVCA, he transferred to Senn High School. In 2004, Sharkey became actively involved with the Chicago Teachers Union when his school was slated to become a military academy.

Prior to its dissolution, Sharkey was a member of the International Socialist Organization (ISO).