问答题
I know a thing or two about what it's like when the
well paid go on strike, because as a member of the Writers Guild of America—the
Hollywood scriptwriters' union—I went on strike a few years back. I recall an
awful lot of shouting and dramatics and walking around in a circle back then
too. But there were doughnuts, which made the whole experience easier. If you
have to picket, it's best to picket with a chocolate glazed.
What there wasn't—and isn't, in the case of the Chicago teachers'
strike—was a lot of sympathy from the general public. The average salary of a
Chicago public-school teacher is about $75,000— well above the national average.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the pugilistic former chief of staff to President
Obama, offered the Chicago teachers a 16% raise on top of that, but he made the
impolitic demands to lengthen the workday and—here's the trouble—tighten job
performance standards. That was enough to send Chicago's
teachers out into the streets and onto front pages all cross the U.S.—a country,
let's remember, where the unemployment rate stays rock steady at about 8% and
employee evaluations are a quarterly event. It's not great optics, as the
political fixers might put it, to be marching around, refusing to work, when
millions of Americans are begging for a job. Not great optics, either, to
dismiss a 16% raise and (slightly) stricter performance standards at the start
of the school year. It's especially tough on Obama—this is his
hometown, after all—and the rest of the Democratic Party, which has stood with
teachers' unions for decades. The National Education Association is the largest
teachers' union in the U.S.—it's actually the largest labor union of any
kind—and major source of money and manpower for the Democrats.
It would be so much easier for everyone if there were a Republican around,
somewhere, to blame for this mess. Grab a cruller, pick up a sign—REPUBLICANS
VS. EDUCATION! or BOOKS NOT BOMBS! —and wait for the compliant media to report
that, as usual, the right wing is trying to hurt your children.
Instead, awkwardness. A powerful ally of the Democratic Party battling a
powerful Democratic mayor in the hometown of the incumbent Democratic President
over work rules that any American worker with a job-which isn't an impressive
number to begin with—would find utterly lenient isn't a great way to enter
campaign season. Chicago, for Obama, is off-limits for the duration of the
strike. On the day the strike erupted, the word from the White House was
silence. This is ugly family business, it seemed to be saying, so let's keep it
to ourselves. But in a surprising display of fleet-footed
political sophistication, support for Emanuel came from Republican
vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan. Real school reform is crucial, he said,
and he cheered the mayor's resolve. Emanuel was compelled to issue a twisty
pretzel of a statement that can be described only as not ungrateful for the
Republicans' support. Hard to do, but Emanuel was trained as a ballet dancer,
and he knows how to get himself into complicated shapes.
Getting out of those shapes is another matter. The marching hordes of teachers
don't seem to understand all that the Democratic Party has done for
them—blocking school-choice movements, saddling charter schools with regulatory
hurdles, standing in the way of meaningful and enforceable teaching standards.
But the Democratic pols seem equally ungrateful for all the money the unions
have poured into their campaigns. It was the same way a few
years ago, when my union was on strike. Paralyzed by the battle between whining,
entitled screenwriters and ruthless studio moguls, Hollywood shut down and
stopped production. Both sides ended up losing. And when a winner emerged, it
was... YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. This time, with luck, the
movie will turn out the same way.
问答题
Why does the author mention his experience of going on strike?
【正确答案】The author mentioned his experience as a starting point to make a contrast between the strike he went on and the Chicago teachers' strike. Such a contrast could help explain the awkward situation of this event, and in the meanwhile make his opinion more persuasive that the school teachers' walkout is bad for both themselves and the Democratic Party.
问答题
Why didn't the Chicago teachers' strike get much sympathy from the general public?
【正确答案】The Chicago teachers' strike didn't get much sympathy from the general public because of two reasons. On the one hand, Chicago public-school teachers' average salary was much higher than the national average. On the other hand, they refused to work under the circumstances of high unemployment rate when millions of Americans couldn't even find a job. On top of that, they refused a 16% raise just because of the slightly tightened job performance standards.
问答题
Try to explain the awkwardness of Chicago teachers' strike.
【正确答案】For decades, the teachers' union had been a close ally of the Democratic Party, and it had been a major source of money for its campaigns. In this strike, the Democratic Party was opposed by its own ally, and the event even took place in the hometown of the incumbent Democratic President Obama. The close relation between the teachers' union and the Democratic Party made the event seem like an ugly family business.
问答题
What is the author's attitude towards the Chicago teachers' strike?
【正确答案】Through the contrast between the strike he went on and the Chicago teachers' walkout, it's not difficult to find out that the author is somewhat critical of this strike. He even predicts that both the teachers' union and the Democratic Party will end up losing if the two parties couldn't eliminate the misunderstandings between them.