Let's Occupy Chicago Monday

Meet at the Board of Trade (LaSalle and Jackson) at 4 P.M.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are coming full-blast to Chicago where Mayor Emanuel and the Civic Committee continue where Mayor Daley left off,  with the city as their personal cash cow.  On Monday the teachers union and education activists will play a key role in the flowering Occupy Chicago Movement. The CTU is mobilizing teachers, who have a day off Monday for Columbus Day, to meet  at the Board of Trade (LaSalle and Jackson) and march to CPS headquarters, to City Hall and the Art Institute to demand and end to the privatization of our schools and asking that the state and and wealthy investors gathering at the Art Institute pay their fair share and adequately fund our schools. Four other marches are also expected to meet up at the Institute.

Greg Hinz at Crain's reports:

The union says about 10,000 teachers, jobless veterans, students and others will join in objecting to "corporate bailouts, tax breaks for the rich and the way neighborhood schools are cheated out of more than $250 million a year." The latter refers to tax-increment financing funds, which the city uses for development projects and which the union asserts can be switched to other needs.

The union said in a press release that demonstrators will also rally for "a better school day" as a counter to the mayor's own 90 minutes of more seat time campaign.

Other marches will begin at: 

• Daley Plaza (Washington & Dearborn) where SEIU members are coming together to demand meaningful job creation.
• Federal Plaza (Adams & Dearborn) An alliance of labor unions and immigrant groups are rallying to demand real solutions to the unemployment crisis. 
• Hyatt Regency (Wacker & Stetson) National Peoples Action—Pay Us Back-Outside of the Mortgage Banker’s Association 98th Annual Convention and Expo. Congresswoman Jan Schakowskywill be speaking to the group about the foreclosure crisis in Chicago. 
• Hilton Chicago (Balbo & Michigan) College students and MoveOn activists are converging outside the Futures & Options expo to demand that corporate welfare be reinvested in our schools and communities.