A most sensible mayoral aide apologized Wednesday for creating a comic story out of the 11-day lecturers strike — by means of sending an electronic mail providing to wager Mayor Lori Lightfoot and most sensible mayoral aides about when the strike would finish.
”My electronic mail mirrored a failed try on my section to inject some levity right into a top tension, hectic and critical scenario,” Mike Frisch, the mayor’s leader in-house exertions negotiator, was once quoted as announcing in a remark launched by means of the mayor’s workplace.
“There was no actual bet. This was intended to be a joke that clearly did not land. It was in poor taste, and I apologize.”
Although Lightfoot was once amongst those that gained the e-mail, she by no means answered and does no longer have “any recollection” of it, the mayor’s workplace mentioned.
“As evident during daily public comments, the Mayor took the issue of the work stoppage by CTU very seriously and the Mayor, of course, never participated in any bet nor would she,” a spokesperson was once quoted as announcing.
Frisch’s apology didn’t fulfill Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey.
“It sort of shows why we have been having such a difficult time with the mayor on the question of a safe reopening of schools. There was a degree of disregard for the seriousness of the situation with a joke. There’s a kind of irreverence there about something that we considered to be quite serious at the time. And we’re still seeing a degree of disregard to what we view as very legitimate concerns involving schools,” Sharkey mentioned.
“The mayor has shown herself in her kind of personal proclivities — the scotch and cigars, the kind of insider jokes and hardball and foul-mouth — to be a very different kind of politician than she said she was when she was running. For someone who said, “Bring in the light. I’m gonna be an anti-Machine politician,” there’s a large number of Machine options there.”
The embarrassing email that handiest exacerbated tensions between Lightfoot and the Chicago Teachers Union was once first reported by means of the Chicago Tribune.
In the topic line of the e-mail, exchanged all the way through the strike, Frisch wrote “confirming our agreement.”
“The Bet: 3 cigars and a bottle of scotch of the winner’s choosing. Under: Strike ends before next Weds. Over: Strike extends past Weds,” he wrote.
In an evident connection with Maurice Classen, the mayor’s leader of workforce, Frisch wrote: “Frisch and Maurice have the Under, MLL has the Over. Now no one can back out …”
The strike ended handiest after Lightfoot misplaced the general public family members combat, necessarily freely giving the shop to the union, which had subsidized her vanquished opponent, County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.
The mayor to start with demanded that lecturers no longer be compensated for the 11 days they had been on strike. The walk-out ended handiest after Lightfoot agreed to pay hanging lecturers for 5 of the 11 days that they had spent at the wood traces.