That’s what this fight is about: the larger unified movement against workers. It also encompasses more than just wages, even though new rules in Chicago dictate that the contract negotiations are limited to that. This is about the education reform debate, and it represents the first time that a teachers union has really fought back against these largely untested and unproven ideas about how to turn around the so-called “failing” public school system. (Note: the public school system, and more broadly the US education system, isn’t failing). And so before we concern-troll that long strikes could hurt future economic opportunity for students, we have to address whether education policy that allows for looting by business interests through moving schools into the for-profit sector, or the end of collective bargaining as a meaningful check on management keeping all profits for themselves, hurts that economic opportunity to a much greater degree.

Rest in peace, Alex. Good work, Rep. Cohen.