Knowing Your Opponent (UPDATE)

The other day, Sharkey and his minions said (not verbatim) that Groot didn't have the balls to stand up to the teachers and they'd have schools shut down all fall. To prove his point, he called for a House of Delegates meeting to authorize a strike over something we're pretty sure isn't a strike-able action.

Turns out he was 100% correct and Groot caved:

• Chicago Public Schools students will start the new school year at home next month as officials plan to announce as soon as Wednesday that they’ll back off a proposal that would have put children in classrooms two days a week, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.
  
  The decision to keep kids at home is an abrupt about-face from city officials who have faced heavy pressure from teachers and parents to go fully remote over health concerns during a pandemic, and who only four days ago asked families to tell CPS whether their children would opt into the district’s in-person plan.
  
  The switch, spearheaded by Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office, also comes mere hours after the city health commissioner said she was in favor of putting kids in schools with proper health protocols, and that she didn’t believe the risk of spread was significant.

So now - if we're reading this correctly - it's NOT about the science at all. It's about the teachers showing everyone exactly who their bitch is....and it's Groot.

They endorsed Prickwrinkle and lost. They walked out and squeezed an impossible raise out of the City. They kept all their members home AT FULL PAY for half a year and presided over online "attendance" that never topped 50%. And now they've made Groot cancel the entire first quarter of the coming year in complete contradiction of the science. Meanwhile, cops have been working three years and one month without a Contract, Groot disrespects our elected officers, her command staff cancels days off on whims and she's threatening to fire every cop she can for infractions that never even rose to the level of a Reprimand.

It's time for someone to look into pay cuts for the teachers. One quarter out of school means one quarter less supplies expended, one quarter less gas burned driving to work, one quarter less day-to-day expenses for showing up. A one quarter cut in pay seems like a good starting point.

UPDATE: Groot claims she isn't Sharkey's bitch:

• Union pressure or a coincidence? The mayor said “no” when asked during a news conference this morning whether the decision had anything to do with a threat by the Chicago Teachers Union to walk off the job should schools reopen after Labor Day. But, as my Tribune colleagues noted in a story today, the official announcement comes just a day after word emerged that the CTU was considering calling its governing body, the House of Delegates, to gather and consider a possible strike vote.

But anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that when Groot could have fired every single teacher on September 08th for job abandonment, she caved.