Chicago fires school counselors
Hundreds rally to save their jobs
By a member of Local 1600, AFT
Chicago
Hundreds of students, faculty and community members marched
in a huge multinational demonstration outside the board meeting
of Chicago City Colleges on March 7 to try to stop the firing
of the city college system's entire counseling service.
Native students drummed. Spanish-speaking students led
chants in their language. People cheered as buses arrived from
every neighborhood, filling two blocks of sidewalk.
Everyone understood this was an attack on workers, students
and the community. The board plans to hire untrained,
part-time, non-union "registration specialists" to replace
tenured counselors with masters and Ph.D. degrees who have been
union workers enjoying full-time benefits.
This attack on union workers began last year, when the board
"privatized" the business offices of the CCC. It is threatening
to do the same with the janitorial staff. Librarians are also
being threatened with job cuts.
CCC provides affordable--but not necessarily free--higher
education to working class students of Chicago. Many of these
students struggle as underpaid workers and single parents, with
all the problems of living in a society where profit comes
before human needs. In addition to conducting classes that help
orient students to college--many are the first in their
families to go beyond high school--the counselors assist needy
students in finding emotional and other resources.
This is one more demonstration of this society's complete
lack of commitment to public education. With rising
unemployment, the government would rather invest in prisons
than provide skills and education for youth and others trying
to improve their lives.
A press conference was held at Operation Push last Saturday
to build awareness and public support for the counselors and
students. As one staff member put it, "The war is on."
Reprinted from the March 28, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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