After failing to curb the powerful teachers union, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) in 2012 presided over the largest public school closing in US history. But the strike didn't resolve the school system's $700 million budget deficit or the 17.6 percent raise that the city had committed to paying teachers over the next four years. That's why Gov. Scott Walker says the Chicago mayor may have to take steps similar to the ones he did in Wisconsin to get back to a fiscally sustainable path.
“Chicago schools were closing to pay for the new teachers’ contract. Thanks to collective bargaining, Chicago’s kids are ‘continuing to get the shaft,' ” he writes in his memoir. Making matters worse: A pension crisis that will more than double in three years to $1.1 billion. Only then will Mr. Emanuel be forced to consider Walker’s measures, despite the political risk. “If the unions’ intransigence continues, Emanuel will have no choice but to seek authority from the Illinois legislature to impose the changes on the unions,” Walker writes.