Unions have elevated the standard of living for everyone. They exist because of the abuses that existed without them.

The only people who benefit from unions are democrat politicians and union leaders. The students, teachers and most of all taxpayers get shafted by them.

Unions are putting themselves out of business. Only about 7 percent of private sector employees belong to unions. And soon the public sector unions will bite the dust because the taxpayers won't put up with their bullshyt and greed.

Best way to stop all of this is to give the teachers good pay, new buildings, new books, 15 kids per class and a teachers aid and every kid a laptop.

How dow we pay for the pie in the sky, cut military spending by 75% and give it to Education where it should be spent. The best way to protect America is with smart kids and well educated parents.

Time for the military to have a bake sale for a air craft destroyer or new bomber.

Too ironic .. the murder capital and the biggest union school strike in history are in Chicago.. This is what voting for obama and one of his groupies get you.. chaos and mayhem!! I VOTED FOR OBAMA BUT I AM SO OVER HIS AND HIS FRIENDS DRAMA!!

I love how the media plays up the Strike as if it is the first time a Strike has occurred in a Democratic Presidency. In fact, Strikes occurred numerous times in Democratic and Republican Presidencies. What generally results is a compromise, a Negotiation, of course. That is the point of Strikes and of Unions in general, which is to Negotiate with management. If both sides hold their positions, a Strike usually results. No one wants one, but that may be what it takes to move one or both sides to compromise.

What will happen in the Teachers Union Strike, is that both sides will claim some Victory, neither getting absolutely everything they want. But maybe with the dialogue, each will understand the issues important to education, swallow some pride and move forward. At
least, I hope so.

Like I said, fire all the teachers, hire only the ones you want, start over. These ingrates aren't useful. they damage their students. I wish I had the teachers benefit packages, for gods sake, these people are pigs.

These teachers should be rated on their performance and education. Well, it looks like most of them are out of jobs. Maybe they can take a BIG pay cut and stick around and scrub the floors. Something they are better qualified for.

Rahm couldn't but I'd bet his mentor...Obamamamama will step in and do it behind the scene...Any bets??

It no longer matters what politicians, mayors, governors, the people decide. The progressives will ALWAYS find a single, activist judge to uphold their radical, leftist agenda. Just like what occurred in Wisconsin today. Throughout the entire country the votes of the majority, the executive and legislative branches of government, the only thing that matters is the lone judge with his/her personal agenda. This is totally upside down.

Unions are critical to maintaining the safety and fair wages for workers in many industries. I don't buy the arguement that unions served their purpose and now we don't have to worry about unsafe work sites, unfair wages or discriminatory employment practices. Without a strong labor movement all these things will be lost.

At the same time, unions need to modernize and acknowledge the realities of the the modern work force and labor market. They can not focus primarily on seniority and protecting jobs for marginal or incompetent employees or for employees that are simply no longer needed due to changes in whatever industry they are in. Todays workers are not motivated to find a job and stay in it forever - they don't even want to. Maintaining and advancing skills and creating opportunities to move among employment in similar disciplines would be a much more valueable focus just as an example.

Hey, Rahm...I hear the Republicans are looking for someone with brains and no ethics...c'mon, guy- go for it...you'll fit right in...and we'll be rid of you.

So the teachers don't want their curriculum decided on by a bunch of bureaucrats, hmmm. Now maybe at least that group of Democrats (the teachers union) will understand why a lot of Americans don't want a national healthcare system, but might support a state or local system. And perhaps they will now understand (even though they are TEACHERS) that the US Constitution was set up to give State and local governments the direct power to govern, NOT the Federal Government. We will see if they can draw a line from Point A to Point B. I doubt it though...Democrats want a big government, everywhere, until it encroaches on them, then they get it, but of course they don't change their vote...

Here are some facts for you to check out 1) a union by law must defend the member who is in trouble up to a point, this is the law, it doesn't matter if they want to or not. If the employee has violated a company rule then the company has the right to fire that employee, many times they do not simply because it is too costly to retrain someone else. 2) When looking at union wages please look at executive/politician wages I think you will be surprised. What any thinking person will see is that while, yes some union members are over compensated for their employment many others are not and work very hard for the offered compensation and take great pride in a quality job and the same can be said for management. I would ask the people here who have made ill-informed comments about union members to please check these and many other facts about unions and union membership, also check the facts concerning executive/government pay and incentives and remember that it takes everyone in the company/government to make a product or service. Unions are not perfect but neither is your manager or your government. If you had a bad experience with a union look around one bad apple doesn't mean the whole basket is bad.

Lets see, teachers strike they do not lose any pay because the state requires a fixed number of hours in each school year so teachers draw a full years salary,no matter what. The only people to suffer are the students who have to make up the lost days out of their summer break and the parents who have to juggle schedules around the lazy teachers waddling the picket line.I was an Army instructor a few years ago and we got young people in who had graduated high school but could not read a tech manual(written at 9th grade level) I think that public service unions should be illegal, if a teacher ,a cop ,a firefighter walks off the job they should fined maybe twice their daily wage,this could come out of their pension funds.All for the students my azz,the lazy bastards want more pay and less work,and they are not even doing their jod now.

Winners and losers?...I think it's the kids that got the short end of the stick.

Having not read the comments I just want to mention something reguarding both sides. First, many people just assume nowadays that UNIONS are bad? Just think about the bad-first your 15 minute break, your vacations, your basic insurance, 8-5 or 9-6, or the overtime pay after 8 hours, time and a half after so many hours, etc are some of the many things that Unions have fought and won for us in the past many years. Now the other side-sometimes the outrageous demands, no flexibility, getting paid outrageous wages compaired to that "normal world", for example the US Postal with which I am a former Union steward. I witnessed blatant abuse of power-for example extravagant holidays that they and banks seem to be the only ones to have? The blatant abuse of Unions throwing their weight behind certain elected candidates-never once did the local unions get asked to vote on whom they want to represent them!?? Above average salaries, for a job that basically required NO College, etc. In fact I personally witness slowdowns in order to make sure that they got OVERTIME to work the 3rd Class mail at least in our office. In fact there was SO much bullying in my office that an employee filed a lawsuit against certain women and employees(the women literally bathe themselves in perfume that was very nauteous to many others but the did this to antagonize this particular employee (as he was very sencisive to the smell), the union did not represent him as they were dominated by employees that bullied and ran off numerous employees by setting tests that employees would fail, setting east tests for those they wanted to stay, BLATANT discrimination to hearing impaired employees for no other reason than they did not like "hearing impaired". So Unions just remember the ones that you screwed, burned, f#@#ed, as you may have got back then-but we are now on the outside and writing letters of blantant abuses, remember the employee that had NO Choice but to because of medical bills for loved ones that were dying or fighting to hang on. NOW we are on the outside and WE remember WHAT YOU DID to us in the past-and you want us to UNDERSTAND your NEED to strike?? Make sure it is valid. However, if there EVER was a need for UNIONS Wal Mart wants you to be one on one with management as YOU do not have a voice or support of others! The store in Abilene, Tx has a co-manager that seem to have a goal of the firing the most number of employees she can. You work your butt off there and you get a measily 20 cent payraise or reviews from mgrs that do not even know or work in your areas. They always hold back a portion of gainful pay increase, in fact this woman when I resign-I gave my written resignation to my area assistan mgr. I left an went to work at a better paying job. I came back 2 weeks later to finalize my resignation. HR gave me a form to sign-I did until I noticed that this co mgr placed me as walking off the job???? I spoke with the Store Head mgr-he assured me he would fixed it! Guess what he did not-also the crueldevil kept me from getting a quartily bonus that was rightfully due. So I pray curses upon her and all that is dear to her! Okay I get off my soapbox. So please look at both size of the story! Thank You

Teachers should be evaluated on their student's scores and with those teachers in surrounding states. This teacher with tenure crap should be flat out outlawed. I had a teacher that did NOTHING and laughed because she had tenure. Uh huh, I ratted her butt out and she couldn't find another teaching job anywhere. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Let them strike. Strike for a year, who cares? Kids will graduate a year later. Rahm do NOT give in, hold your ground and show these bullies for what they really are! Or, let them work and then don't pay them... or better yet, since the budget can't afford it, file bankruptcy and many teachers will feel like jumping out of windows because they just lost their union. I get a kick out of thinking about that last part. LMFAO

Education begins at home. My parents were responsible for my education and they knew it. My mom stayed home to raise her children because my father grew up without a mother and he knew how important it was to have a mother at home with the children. My mother taught us how to read and do math before we went to school. We didn't have TV because that was not part of the educational process. If we didn't get A's we were expected to do better and we learned the joy of learning. Government was never expected to educate us and we were raised to take care of ourselves. Materialism was not advocated and my parents didn't participate in the materialistic consumerism of today facilitated by debt. The only debt my father had was a mortgage on a home that was very modest. The media, owned by corporations, is hell bent on convincing us we need STUFF to be happy. It ain't so. Education is the responsibility of parents but parents today want it to be governments responsibility and that will never work for the benefit of children and society. We have a sick society of narcissism and self indulgence.

Corporations caused the rise in unions. Read the JUNGLE, about life in Chicago meatpacking or the GRAPES OF WRATH. If humans treated each other with dignity none of this would happen. That would require an evolutionary improvement to the human brain which is not likely.

The bottom line is that the teachers in Chicago already make way more than they're worth, especially if you use student test scores.

In reality, the district could replace half the teachers with janitors since many teachers are nothing more than over glorified and overpaid babysitters.

But I don't blame the teachers for this fact, blame the parents of the students. Academics are not a priority for many, if not most, inner city families.

Gee I wish the good old days of Reagan running this country were back.

Where is a president like Reagan when you need him? Remember how he handled the air traffic controller strike? What most don't know is it also averted a Postal clerk strike among others. They need to say "Return to the classroom or we consider this your resignation. There are teachers without jobs who will take your place." Then put out a nationwide call for applicants. Taxpayers are getting tired of paying for sweetheart deals like police officers overtime being included in retirement. How many years must we pay you overtime? Weren't you paid at the time? No one else gets paid overtime forever.

As demonstrated by the timing of this strike, teacher's unions, on a whole could not care less about the students they are entrusted with. They are only concerned with what is best for their members. Look at the "rubber rooms" places where people who have no business in the classroom spend days, weeks, even years they are still paid as teachers because of the power of the unions but they never do any real work related to children anymore. It sickening.

Unions have contributed greatly to the destruction of public education and this strike in Chicago is just another glaring example of that.

I hope emanuel will do the right thing for once.