Chicago Sun Times: Teachers union rejects CPS contract offer
The Chicago Teachers Union — citing a lack of trust and concerns about long-term school funding — unanimously voted Monday to reject a four-year contract offer.
In the days ahead of the vote, the teachers union had called the Chicago Public Schools proposal a “serious” one, leading some to believe a tentative agreement was likely.
“I know people were expecting something completely different, but that’s not how we work at the Chicago Teachers Union,” CTU President Karen Lewis told reporters after the vote Monday.
Crain's: Corporations moving their headquarters to Chicago arrive with only a handful of employees and a modest economic impact
In the winter twilight, the logo of Archer Daniels Midland gleams silver where it is cut into the wall beside the front door at 77 W. Wacker Drive. Though it marks the company’s world headquarters, it’s easy to walk past without noticing.
Contrast that with the $33.12 billion agribusiness’s presence at its former headquarters in Decatur. When Chicago landed ADM in 2013, it got 70 executives and white-collar employees, plus a promise of 100 technology jobs that never arrived. Two years later, Decatur still has 4,200 ADM workers in logistics, corn processing, farmer services, natural health and nutrition, oilseed processing and specialty ingredients.
ADM is Exhibit A in the rise of a new type of corporate headquarters, one that arrives from afar but packs light. These headquarters represent the pinnacle of the corporate pyramid, snapped off and relocated, free of jobs tied to operations and often midlevel HQ functions such as payroll, human resources or purchasing. To be sure, migrating headquarters offer benefits to the city: They boost demand for business services, their executives join the philanthropic scene and, of course, they confer bragging rights. But in terms of jobs, the farther a company travels to set up shop in Chicago, the fewer people come with it.
Chicago Tribune: Six months in, Chicago's plastic bag ban a mixed bag
In the six months since Chicago’s plastic bag ban went into effect, Jordan Parker, an environmentalist and critic of the city’s bag ordinance, has lobbied aldermen to give it more teeth.
But she has also felt encouraged by what appears to be growing awareness among some shoppers to cut down on plastic bags.
At her neighborhood Jewel in Uptown, Parker has noticed 1 in 3 customers carrying reusable bags as they shop, which she credits to prominent signage on store windows advocating BYOB — bring your own bag — and to cashiers asking shoppers at check out if they’ve brought their bag or wish to buy one.
Chicago Reader: The big swap
If you’ve seen my new favorite movie, The Big Short, you’ve heard that banking used to be a boring, old-boys’ enterprise that mostly consisted of lighting up a cigar, making a fixed-interest loan to the neighborhood hardware dealer, and taking a nap.
Then derivatives came along, and the stodgy old banking business turned into Las Vegas on wheels. The Big Short is a hugely entertaining (and appalling) take on the variable-rate mortgage repackaging that brought on the 2008 subprime crisis and nearly shut down the economy.
But mortgages weren’t the only financial instruments generating derivatives. In the early years of the 21st century, state and local government bonds—those staid and sleepy behemoths—were being issued with their own set of variable rates and a magic little add-on feature that was supposed to make them safe—a derivative known as an interest-rate swap.
Crain's: Chicago's business leaders can help halt cycle of crime
Reading the crime blotter or watching the 10 o’clock news can be depressing—so much so that many of us sometimes feel powerless to do anything against the forces of violence, poverty and injustice that are bleeding Chicago.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Chicago’s executives and entrepreneurs do have the power to reduce the cycle of crime that has brought such pain and embarrassment to the city.
The key they hold is jobs.
City Limits: Police misconduct costs Chicago more than $50K per officer
It’s difficult to look beyond the human cost of police abuse.
For decades, too many Chicagoans have been brutalized, wrongfully prosecuted and killed by members of law enforcement sworn to protect them – sewing seeds of cynicism and outright hatred across neighborhoods where healthy relationships with police are needed most.
But an investigation by the Better Government Association shows that in addition to the social cost of abuse, officer misconduct costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.