“The unions are how we have a voice,” said Warren, one of several Democrats running for president who have expressed support for the strike, which showed no sign of ending. “The unions are how we have power. The unions are how we make sure that the needs of every one of our children are heard loud and clear.”
The rush by Warren and other Democratic candidates to defend the striking teachers — Sen. Bernie Sanders attended a rally before the strike, Sen. Cory Booker met with union members, former Vice President Joe Biden and others have expressed encouragement on Twitter — conveyed the national resonance of the Chicago union’s demands for more support staff and smaller class sizes.
It also reflected a broader shift in their party, as candidates respond to a recent revival of teacher activism across the country and seek to solidify union support ahead of next year’s election.
“What it’s saying is that the Democratic Party is actually finding its Rooseveltian roots again,” Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in an interview.
A decade ago, Weingarten said such an outpouring of support from so many candidates would have been unlikely.
Back then, some Democrats joined conservatives in criticizing the power of teachers’ unions. President Barack Obama sometimes criticized the unions as not focused enough on student achievement, and his administration supported nonprofit charter schools, which are generally not unionized.
“It is a real shift,” Weingarten said. “It is a change.”
David Axelrod, a longtime Chicago political consultant and former adviser to Obama, said he was not surprised that Democratic candidates were stepping in with support for the Chicago teachers.
“There’s a great deal of competition within the field for support on the left, and there’s a great deal of competition for support from teachers nationally,” he said, adding, “The other advantage of being a presidential candidate from out of town is that you don’t have to pay for it. Who cannot be in favor of smaller class sizes and more support staff?”
Warren, who often speaks of her own stint as a teacher, and who this week released a plan calling for a quadrupling of federal funds for schools that serve low-income students, arrived on Chicago’s West Side as negotiations between the union and Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration appeared to grow more tense. One union member, who addressed the crowd before Warren spoke, called the mayor “Petty Lori.”
Lightfoot, a Democrat who was elected earlier this year, has talked repeatedly about the school district’s fiscal challenges and has urged teachers to return to work while negotiations continued. Union leaders took offense at the suggestion and said a resolution was not imminent, meaning that more than 300,000 students would remain out of class.
“We’re not going back to work without a legally binding agreement,” said Jesse Sharkey, the union president, on Monday night. “The mayor today has dashed our hopes for a quick settlement.”
In addition to the teachers, a separate union representing thousands of school support workers in Chicago, including classroom aides and security guards, remained on strike Tuesday.
Chicago is a heavily Democratic city with a long history of backing labor unions. As teachers have marched through downtown and picketed outside schools in recent days, they have often been greeted by supportive car honks and parents offering apple cider and doughnuts. But Lightfoot and her predecessor, Rahm Emanuel, whose tenure included an especially bitter teachers’ strike in 2012, have struggled to reconcile demands from the union with the bleak finances of the city and the school system.
“Beyond what we put on the table, there is simply no more money,” Lightfoot said, taking a noticeably harsher tone this week than in the first days of the strike. She added: “Enough is enough. There is no further excuse to keep our kids out of school.”
Lightfoot suggested that she was unsurprised by Warren’s arrival, but did not expect it to change much for the city.
“She has her right to come in,” Lightfoot said. “I would expect all Democratic candidates for the presidency to support workers. That’s who we are as a party. But at the end of the day, what’s going to get it done is what happens at the bargaining table.”
Republicans were also skeptical of the visit.
“Teachers should be wary of any advice Elizabeth Warren may be relaying today in Chicago,” said Kevin Knoth, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, in a statement that questioned the wisdom of Warren’s plan for spending billions of dollars more on education.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has attended some of the negotiating sessions to try to help reach a deal, said that the candidates weighing in on Chicago’s strike are recognizing a broader problem in paying for what is needed in schools in communities across the country.
“These are not just Chicago’s problems,” Jackson said. “They really need to talk about a national plan.”
In recent years, teachers have protested their pay or work conditions in liberal cities like Los Angeles and Denver, as well as in conservative states like Oklahoma and West Virginia. Amid that wave of activism, Democrats at all levels of politics have rushed to ingratiate themselves. Leading presidential contenders, including Sanders, Warren, Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris of California, have all vied for endorsements from teachers’ unions.
The Chicago strike, in particular, has been a favorite topic. Harris posted earlier this month that she was “in solidarity with Chicago’s teachers.” Julián Castro, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, posted a video before the strike calling attention to the demands of Chicago teachers. And on Tuesday morning, as hundreds of red-clad teachers gathered outside an elementary school, Warren told the cheering crowd that “I’m here to stand for America’s public schools.”
“To have someone like Senator Warren come out,” said Brett Murphy, a high school teacher who attended the speech, “and say, ‘You know what, I understand why you’re standing here, keep standing here, and don’t give in till it’s over,’ that gives us the boost” to keep fighting.
This article originally appeared in
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