It was supposed to be impossible for Chicago teachers to legally strike. Just a few years ago, after a hedge fund-backed campaign, state legislators targeted Chicago teachers with the requirement that they would need 75 percent of all teachers—not just 75 percent of those voting on whether to strike—to authorize a strike. But Chicago teachers have met that threshold twice since the law’s passage, striking in 2012 and ready to do so again this spring if the school district doesn’t negotiate a reasonable contract with them.

Back in 2012, Mayor Rahm Emanuel was much, much stronger than he is now, yet one poll found that 47 percent of Chicago voters supported the strike, with 39 percent opposed. Now that Emanuel is struggling, the teachers may be in a stronger position politically … but this strike will come after years of attacks and layoffs and cutbacks have weakened the Chicago schools and their teachers. Chicago Public Schools management is pushing for massive layoffs or for teachers to accept a big pay cut. The teachers are fighting those demands, but they’re also fighting over-reliance on standardized testing and data collection to substitute for classroom education, and for the school district to stop authorizing new charter schools even as it cuts back and closes public schools.

Sarah Jaffe puts the attacks on Chicago schools in context:

The 50 schools closed under Emanuel were mostly on the South and West Sides and mostly served students of color; when Emanuel's administration shuttered half the city's mental health clinics in 2012, four of the six closed were on the South Side. Meanwhile, Chambers says, the city's rich and the financial industry are doing better than ever, and so CTU has included demands for progressive taxation, including a financial transactions tax or a millionaire's tax. They're also calling for the city to renegotiate lousy deals on financial instruments like interest-rate swaps that have cost the city more than $1 billion.

When corporate education reformers and hedge fund privatizers go after teachers unions, it’s part of a broader war on public education and public services more generally. And it’s all too clear who’s getting rich and who’s getting screwed.