In support of going to the source information, refer to video from Karen Lewis, President of the Chicago Teacher’s Union as she speaks, (found at http://news.yahoo.com/video/talks-fail-chicago-teachers-union-045152496.html among other locations). In that video, Ms. Lewis states: “We are not far apart on compensation. However we are apart on benefits. We want to maintain the existing health benefits.”
For civil servants, Barack Obama has been a friend, more than a friend, going as far as omitting the private sector middle class from his concerns when he said, “the private sector is doing fine,” (look for cites all over the place). I am against the perpetuation of the old world benefit packages for all civilian civil servants, because there’s been no incentive in a government by itself for itself to address the reality of what’s been happening to the private sector middle class.
Today’s mean-ing of being American, in a world where scarcity seems to only surround programming and policies that could benefit the private sector middle class, demands both candidates to give more than talk about the middle class. The Chicago teacher's strike is an opportunity for President Obama to distinguish his talk from Mitt Romney's talk about the importance of the middle class.
While we have one candidate catering to the rich and the other to the civil servants and the poor, the middle class is offered little hope by either candidate. It’s time for slashing jobs and benefits programs, job security, and salaries for civil servants much as has been done for people in the middle class, many of whom are better educated and with more experience than many of those protected by old-time civil service concepts.
President Obama keeps telling us it’s time to move “Forward” yet he caters to old-time unions and civil service policies that no longer are relevant for today’s world. After all, according to zipatlas.com (look up average salary for person living in Chicago), the average income overall in the city of Chicago is $62,345.96, the average salary for teachers in Chicago is $71,000 (and has been estimated as high as $75,000 according to cbslocal.com in a 6/12/12 report by Dana Kozlov).
The Chicago teacher’s strike will be spun as a negative for the President’s campaign by those supporters of the outrageously good benefits packages that civil servants have enjoyed based on the untrue premise of long ago that sacrifices in salary were made up with perks such as pensions and health benefits. However, the premise has been false for decades. Civil service has been a bastion of job security, great pay and benefits for decades longer than middle class workers in the private sector experienced such an attitude towards workers.
If the President dares to move away from his out-of-touch support of civil service that has turned off so many of his middle class supporters he’ll grab onto the situation in Chicago as a chance to put his Presidential support beyond mere lip-service to some vague concept of “Forward” and support progress in dismantling the preferences for civil service workers that are an insult to those whose tax dollars support them.
