Apparently, Chicago union bosses like to bill themselves as the nation’s foremost authorities on everything Penny Pritzker. A longtime and very valuable Obama fundraising ally, Pritzker recently resigned from the Windy City’s school board to possibly accept the President’s nomination as U.S. Commerce Secretary. Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis couldn’t wait to write a blistering public farewell letter:
Penny Pritzker has a long and storied history as being an anti-labor, anti-worker kind of boss. She has supported policies that have had an adverse impact on working-class families and their children. As a member of the Board of Education she has worked to close schools, destabilize neighborhoods and disrupt the economic lives of thousands of public school employees.
In addition, Prizker’s luxury hotel chain, the Hyatt, has benefitted directly from the TIF program which takes money away from schools and gives it to wealthy developers, and she’s allowed this to happen despite the conflict of interest and the damage it does to our schools. We cannot imagine that someone who has a long history of bludgeoning Chicago’s working families and destroying public schools would be given a platform to continue these sorts of business practices on a national level.
She has been the subject of countless protests because of her business practices and for her support of policies that are harmful to students in Chicago Public Schools. The Chicago Teachers Union has certainly been quite vocal and visible in those demonstrations.
Now that there’s an open board seat, perhaps taxpayers will get a replacement who speaks to the plight of those who rely on our school district. The public has been advocating for an elected, representative school board for some time now. Perhaps the mayor will take heed to this call and finally appoint someone who is compassionate and dedicated to truly giving our students the neighborhood schools they deserve and not just become another rubber stamp for his failed school reform experiments.
This entry was posted in Big Labor Bailout, Big Labor Bosses, Congress, Department of Labor, NLRB, Politics, Unions and tagged board of education, Chicago, chitown, hyatt, karen lewis, penny pritzker, tif, us commerce secretary, windy city. Bookmark the permalink.