Sitthixay Ditthavong / AP
Chicago Teachers Union delegates arrive for a meeting Sunday in which they are expected to review a proposed contract and vote whether to suspend the week-long strike.
By NBCChicago.com
Updated at 1:15 p.m. ET: A Cook County Circuit Court judge on Monday declined a request to hold a same-day hearing for an injunction to immediately end Chicago's teacher strike.
During a short meeting, Judge Peter Flynn postponed the requested hearing until Wednesday, city law department spokesman Roderick Drew said. That comes after the Chicago Teachers Union's delegates are scheduled to meet and vote on a proposed contract.
Earlier in the day, Mayor Rahm Emanuel ordered a 700-page injunction request be filed to get kids and teachers back in class. It seeks a temporary restraining order and asks a judge to immediately end the strike. The complaint states the strike is illegal because it's based on non-economic issues and because it presents a "clear and present danger to public health and safety."
View NBCChicago.com for more coverage on the Chicago strike
The move came after union delegates on Sunday deferred their vote to end the strike and asked for more time to review a proposed teachers' contract drafted by school officials and the CTU.?
"I will not stand by while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a union," Emanuel said Sunday in a statement. "This was a strike of choice and now a delay of choice that is wrong for our children."?
John Gress
Chicago Teachers Union members leave a House of Delegates meeting on the seventh day of their strike in Chicago, September 16, 2012.
"This continued action by union leadership is illegal on two grounds," Emanuel said. "It is over issues that are deemed by state law to be non-strikable, and it endangers the health and safety of our children."
Union officials released a statement Monday calling Emanuel?s complaint "vindictive."
?CPS? spur-of-the-moment decision to seek injunctive relief some six days later appears to be a vindictive act instigated by the mayor.?This attempt to thwart our democratic process is consistent with Mayor Emanuel?s bullying behavior toward public school educators,? said the union in a statement. ?As teachers, paraprofessionals and clinicians continue to fight to make our city?s public schools stronger, the mayor, CEO Brizard and members of the board want to trample our collective bargaining rights and hinder our freedom of speech and right to protest.?
Union delegates aren't scheduled to meet again until Tuesday out of respect for the Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah, which began at sundown Sunday.
More than 26,000 teachers and staff walked out last Monday, leaving more than 350,000 students unattended. For five days, thousands of teachers picketed outside schools and twice converged on the Board of Education headquarters downtown.
'Not happy'
In earlier developments, delegates from the Chicago Teachers Union told their bargaining team Sunday that they want to meet with the schools they represent before making a decision about whether to end their strike.
"They?re not happy with the agreement and would like it to be a lot better for us than it is," Union President Karen Lewis said in a news briefing Sunday evening, adding that they are returning to their schools with the proposal because they do not want to feel rushed to make a decision.
A union bargaining team and city officials had hammered out a proposed contract that would move away from merit pay and allow teachers to appeal their evaluations.?
A faction of the union sees it as a "back room deal" that does not have unified support. A source close to the union told NBC Chicago that Lewis' caucus shouted obscenities at her and other leaders late Saturday night, saying, "You sold out" and, "Rahm's getting everything they wanted, what the hell did we get?"???
Lewis, exhausted from a tense week, indicated that she's done negotiating and asked "Will my own caucus defy me?"
Sitthixay Ditthavong / AP
Public school teachers rallying at Chicago's Congress Plaza protest against billionaire Hyatt Hotel mogul Penny Pritzker, who is also a member of the Chicago Board of Education on Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012.
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At the heart of those who oppose this new deal -- they feel the negotiating team did not fight for paraprofessionals and special education teachers and students.
Some delegates shouted at Lewis there is "no way to vote on something we haven't seen."
Read full coverage at NBCChicago.com
Teachers revolted last week against sweeping education reforms sought by Emanuel, especially evaluating teachers based on the standardized test scores of their students. They also fear a wave of neighborhood school closings that could result in mass teacher layoffs. They want a guarantee that laid-off teachers will be recalled for other jobs in the district.
"They're still not happy with the evaluations. They're not happy with the recall (provision)," Lewis said of delegates.?
Still, Lewis seemed energized in a statement Saturday night, buoyed by the agreement, which came after a weeklong strike that began on Sept. 10.
"This union has proven the Chicago labor movement is neither dormant nor dead,"?Lewis said in a statement on the union?s blog late on Saturday. "We have solidified our political power and captured the imagination of the nation. No one will ever look upon a teacher and think of him or her as a passive, person to be bullied and walked on ever again."
Emanuel's chief negotiator, School Board President David Vitale, said the union should allow children to go back to school while the two sides complete the process.
"We've done as much as we know how to do," Vitale said. "We reached an agreement with their leadership, we think it's a good agreement. It's time for the teachers to get back in school."
The contract includes what Lewis called victories for the 29,000 union members, which she outlined on the union?s website:??
As the Chicago teachers strike enters its second week, Mayor Rahm Emanuel hopes to get students back into schools by heading to court. City lawyers are seeking an injunction to force teachers back into the classroom as soon as possible.
PAY:
?The teachers union wants a three-year contract that guarantees a 3-percent increase the first year and 2-percent increases for the second and third years. The contract also includes the possibility of being extended a fourth year with a 3-percent raise. A first-year teacher earns about $49,000,?according to the National Council on Teacher Quality; the highest-paid teacher earns $92,227.
Chicago Public Schools would move away from merit pay for individual teachers.
EVALUATION:?Teachers would be evaluated 70 percent in terms of how they teach (?teacher practice?) and 30 percent in terms of how their students improve (?student growth?). Evaluations will not affect tenured teachers during the first year, and teachers may appeal their evaluation.??
HIRES:?Responding to parent demands, Chicago Public Schools would hire more than 600 teachers specialized in art, music, physical education and foreign languages, among other teacher specialties. More than half of large school districts rehire laid-off teachers,according to The New York Times; the Chicago school board has pushed to leave control to principals.
Those new hires will allow for the longer class day --?which will be seven hours for elementary school students, up from five hours and 45 minutes. Chicago had been known for one of the shortest school days in the country -- a point that became a sticking point for Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Of those new hires, half must be union employees who were previously laid off. (Higher-rated teachers would have a better chance at being rehired,?the Chicago Tribune reported.)
BULLYING:?The contract demands ending bullying by principals and managerial personnel to ?curtail some of the abusive practices that have run rampant in many neighborhood schools.? Principals, however, will continue to exercise power over hiring teachers,?the Tribune reported.
In one instance,?according to CBS Chicago, dozens of complaints were made about a principal at Josiah Pickard Elementary School during his five years on the job. A union representative told CBS Chicago that the volume of complaints was not normal for a principal.
TEXTBOOKS:?Chicago students would have their textbooks on the first day of school instead of having to wait up to six weeks.
The strike may have hurt Mayor Rahm Emanuel?s image as a hard-nosed innovator,?the Chicago Tribune reported, largely because of the mayor?s aggressive statements about teachers ? which he implied after the school board nixed half their pay raise.
Related: Chicago strike: Will teachers union approve proposed contract?
The strike received nationwide attention in part because Chicago is the third-largest school district in the nation and its teachers hadn?t gone on strike for 25 years, since 1987.
But the strike has made headlines also because Emanuel was Obama?s first chief of staff. Obama, whose daughters attended the private University of Chicago Laboratory School (known as the ?Lab school?), campaigned on public school reform and has advocated merit pay.
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"I will not stand by while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a union," Emanuel said Sunday in a statement. "This was a strike of choice and now a delay of choice that is wrong for our children."?
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