Well it certainly isn’t for pay, since the raise they’ve been offered is 16% over four years. Here’s an eyeopening look into their motives from their own mouths!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU_JwITgfMc&w=560&h=315]

So once again: why are they striking?  Power. They are flexing their muscle at the expense of the children that they are supposed to teaching.  Shameful stuff.

UPDATE: It’s over.  Apparently they got word from the White House that they were making Rahm ‘dead fish’ Emmanuel look bad and to stop it now.

via Cleveland.com

The walkout, the first in Chicago in 25 years, shut down the nation’s third-largest school district just days after 350,000 students had returned from summer vacation. Tens of thousands of parents were forced to find alternatives for idle children, including many whose neighborhoods have been wracked by gang violence in recent months.

Union President Karen Lewis said the union’s 700-plus delegates responded to a voice vote with an estimated 98 percent in favor of reopening the schools.

“We said that we couldn’t solve all the problems of the world with one contract,” Lewis said. “And it was time to end the strike.”

Tuesday’s vote was not on the contract offer itself, but on whether to continue the strike. The contract will now be submitted to a vote by the full membership of more than 25,000 teachers.