Orga­nized by the Chica­go Teach­ers Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign, a group of com­mu­ni­ty activists ded­i­cat­ed to sup­port­ing the union, many sit­ting in the pews wore the CTU’s bright red t‑shirts. But onstage, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from tran­sit work­ers union ATU 308, AFSCME Coun­cil 31, the Black Youth Project (BYP) 100, Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­fes­sion­als of Illi­nois Local 4100 and the Chica­go Stu­dent Union joined CTU Pres­i­dent Karen Lewis in call­ing for sol­i­dar­i­ty across unions and non-union groups.

Activists from across Chica­go gath­ered in down­town Chica­go last night at the First Unit­ed Methodist Church at the Chica­go Tem­ple to demon­strate a unit­ed front in the face of con­tin­u­ing bud­get cuts and aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures pro­posed by state and city offi­cials and a poten­tial­ly impend­ing strike of the Chica­go Teach­ers Union.

The phrase of the night was ​“Broke on Pur­pose,” as every speak­er allud­ed to a bud­get cri­sis that they say has been man­u­fac­tured by Repub­li­can Gov. Bruce Rauner and oth­er wealthy Illi­noisans at the expense of Chicago’s work­ing class, teach­ers, minori­ties and immi­grants. Grow­ing frus­tra­tion has led activists to call for pro­gres­sive tax reform to fund pub­lic ser­vices and work­er compensation.

Tod St. Hill, of BYP 100, argued that mem­bers of the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment must fight as ​”fierce­ly” for edu­ca­tion reform and the pro­tec­tion of men­tal health facil­i­ties as the demil­i­ta­riza­tion of Chicago’s police, AFSCME’s Tracey Abman called for ​”one fight.”

AFSCME mem­ber Lin­da Loew and Eliz­a­beth Lalasz from Nation­al Nurs­es Unit­ed announced a city-wide day of ​“direct action” against Gov. Bruce Rauner, May­or Rahm Emanuel and ​”the rest of the 1%“ on Fri­day, April 1. The fly­er declares that the day’s goal will be to ​”SHUT IT DOWN,” ask­ing ​“fam­i­lies, stu­dents, teach­ers, work­ers and all those who thirst for jus­tice” to march against what they say are the city’s myr­i­ad racial and eco­nom­ic injus­tices. While there’s no men­tion of the phrase on the fly­er, the day may have the mak­ings of a day­long gen­er­al strike.

April 1 had been sug­gest­ed in Feb­ru­ary by the CTU as a start for an unfair labor prac­tice strike, in response to a notice by CPS that they planned to can­cel the 7 per­cent pen­sion pick­up that has been in effect since 1981. By law, Chica­go teach­ers are required to con­tribute 9 per­cent of their salaries toward their pen­sions, but, under the pick­up deal, 7 per­cent of that con­tri­bu­tion is cov­ered by the school system.

While the CTU and CPS bat­tled over the legal­i­ty of such a strike, CPS even­tu­al­ly backed off its pro­pos­al on March 4, claim­ing they will wait until the com­ple­tion of an inde­pen­dent fact-find­ing mis­sion, a legal­ly required pre-strike process, on April 18 to make any final deci­sions on the cut.

The threat went from imme­di­ate to fur­ther in the future, but ten­sions haven’t been quelled. CTU Pres­i­dent Karen Lewis promised April 1 would be still be a ​”show­down” in a fight against con­tin­u­ing aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures, say­ing in a state­ment, ​“We will join with any­one who believes it is time for us to unite, to fight Rauner, Rahm and the Ken Griffins of our state who are unit­ed in a Trump-like cam­paign to turn back the hands of progress and destroy pub­lic edu­ca­tion in Illi­nois — and most def­i­nite­ly Chica­go.” (Grif­fin is a hedge fund man­ag­er and the rich­est man in Illinois.)

The Unit­ed States rarely sees mas­sive col­lab­o­ra­tive actions involv­ing work­ers across unions and indus­tries and non-union activists. Else­where in the world, such strikes — whether sym­bol­ic day­long actions or more pro­longed walkoffs — are more com­mon­place. In Jan­u­ary 2015, for exam­ple, around 1.5 mil­lion Nor­we­gian union work­ers from three dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions took part in sev­er­al 2‑hour strikes in protest of changes to the country’s Health and Safe­ty at Work act.

Speak­ers at the CTU event sug­gest­ed that April 1 has the poten­tial be mas­sive in scale. ​“Togeth­er, we aim our sling­shots at the giant,” said John Miller, Pres­i­dent of UPI Local 4100.

As she exit­ed the ral­ly, Deb­by Pope, a retired school­teacher and CTU staffer, said, “[We’re] fight­ing against our com­mon ene­my. We are going to take them down because our cause is righteous.”

The out­come of the city­wide day-of-action may depend on just how many Chica­go work­ers and cit­i­zens heed the call and hit the streets to boy­cott class­rooms, the mag­nif­i­cent mile, and LaSalle Street banks.

Recall­ing the sense of iso­la­tion the CTU felt in the weeks lead­ing up to its his­toric 2012 strike, Karen Lewis spoke of the need to come togeth­er this time to demand a bud­get and rep­re­sen­ta­tives that work for Chicago’s com­mu­ni­ties instead of against them, ask­ing for ​“love, strength and coop­er­a­tion in num­bers” ahead of the day.