Chicago strike tests support for unions

WASHINGTON -- The teachers strike in Chicago this week could be a bruising battle on the picket line and in the school of public opinion.

The job protections and benefits packages enjoyed by public-sector union members have started to breed resentment among some Americans who have lost their jobs, seen reduced benefits packages or suffered pay cuts during the economic recession.

Support for unions hit its peak in the 1950s, when 75 percent of Americans said they approved of labor unions. Only about one in five Americans now say they trust unions, according to a Gallup Poll conducted in August. The waning labor support gives politicians like Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel greater backing to confront public employees in the name of fiscal responsibility.

Chicago teachers, in the third day of their walkout, are striking about a reform package that includes teacher evaluations, job security and merit pay. The strike was not reverberating politically at the moment, but it could, if only because any news event so close to Nov. 6 is going to be scrutinized, said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Connecticut.

Federal labor statistics show that median wages have risen for both private and public workers.

Still, a Chicago public schools teacher makes on average more than the average private-sector worker in Chicago, according to Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

-- McClatchy-Tribune