The New Target for Greedy Teachers? Baseball

The teachers of Chicago have it pretty easy.   They have those luxurious Summers off for their European vacations, they're done with work by 3:00, and they have the relatively easy job of educating and monitoring 35 children at a time.  Unfortunately, in Chicago this year, it is going down as the year of the greedy teacher.

With a new go get 'em mayor in office who isn't going to waste his time in office getting along with people, the Chicago Teachers Union has been up in arms.  Recently, the President of the Teachers Union was so rude during discussions with the mayor had no choice but to get in her face and drop a coupe of f-bombs on her.  It's no wonder that Alderman Ed Burke is so embarrassed by the Chicago Teachers Union.

The latest target of the Chicago Teachers Union is the Chicago Cubs, whose owners find themselves with a dilapidated old ballpark called Wrigley Field.  I don't know a lot about baseball, but I do know fans aren't going to pay good money to sit in an old eye sore of a ballpark and if fans won't go out to see ballgames, then bars and restaurants in the area around Wrigley will resemble a ghost town, and the Cubs will move to another city like Indianapolis or Charlotte.  If the city of Chicago doesn't step up this could happen as soon as next season.  It seems unreasonable to expect the billionaire Ricketts Family that owns the Cubs and their ballpark to be expected to pay for such a large burden themselves.

What the Cubs are asking for is $200 million to rehabilitate the stadium and to make it  a place worthy of stars like Alfonso Soriano and Kerry Wood to call home.  Unfortunately, the greedy teachers also want money.  First, they want the 4% raise that the city agreed to pay them in their current contract which would cost the city abut $70 million.    The city has said that it expects teachers to work about 300 extra hours next year and it would like them to start working 90 minutes longer this year.  In exchange for working 300 extra hours, the city would be willing to give them $1200, but the greedy teachers won't budge.  They want to be made more and they want to actually get to have a say in how the extra time is used.

What the teachers don't realize is with the money it would cost the city just to pay the teachers $20 an hour for the extra 300 hours would be enough to put a dome over Wrigley Field and probably with enough change left over to honor former Cub greats like Rick Reuschel and Steve Swisher with their own statues.  Rahm Emanuel put it best when he said that for too long, the children of this city have gotten the shaft.  Long time failure cannot be rewarded when there are important civic concerns like the Cubs in need of money.