CHICAGO – The Chicago Teachers Union is encouraging members to save money in preparation for a “protracted strike” as city officials warn of mass layoffs without a bailout from state lawmakers.

The Chicago Public Schools budget is short $480 million, largely because of teacher pension costs, and district CEO Forest Claypool contends the only solution is a massive infusion of state funds. A standoff between Democrat controlled General Assembly and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, meanwhile, means Illinois is operating without a budget four months into the new fiscal year.

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The situation required CPS officials to delay negotiations over a new teachers contract, and the CTU is getting restless as Claypool continues to warn of mass layoffs and other severe cuts if state lawmakers don’t fork over the cash. Claypool recently told the media that thousands of teachers could be laid off next semester without the bailout, and CTU officials aren’t very happy about it, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

“With the uncertainty in Springfield, the continued chaos at the Board of Education and the constant threats to our classrooms, we have to be prepared,” CTU President Karen Lewis said at a Monday press conference, where she also urged members to start saving 25 percent of their pay. “Our families will depend on us being able to weather what could be a protracted strike.”

Lewis led the CTU on an ugly eight-day strike in 2012 that ultimately convinced CPS officials to acquiesce to its demands, and Lewis made it clear she’ll do it again.

“We have to use what works for us, which is ultimately withholding our labor,” Lewis said, according to the Chicago Tribune. “Do they think we’re bluffing?”

The CTU’s threats come after Claypool authored an editorial for the Tribune explaining that the district is pinning all of its hopes for avoiding financial ruin on help from state lawmakers. If that doesn’t happen, “drastic cuts will be made in February to make sure our schools remain operational,” he wrote.

“There will be fewer teachers,” Claypool wrote. “There will be larger class sizes. And the educational gains that our principals, teachers and students have worked so hard for will be jeopardized.”

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Claypool alleges the district can fix its decades-old financial problems forever with a state bailout.

“I would say if Springfield helps, if Springfield steps up to the plate, we will solve the fiscal crisis this year,” he said. “We will not be going from year to year, lurching from crisis to crisis. But that’s not possible as long as Springfield continues to discriminate against Chicago schoolchildren.”

The CTU’s contract with the district expired in June 30 and union and district officials are currently working with a mediator. Lewis called for negotiations to move to a “fact-finding” stage, one of the final steps required by law before the CTU can vote to strike.

“If they’re going to (implement a) mass furlough program, mass layoffs, just try to gut the schools … you could expect us to be moving towards a fight in the second semester as we go into early spring,” CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey said.

Lewis told reporters the CTU will hold an “official ‘practice’ strike vote” Thursday to gauge support for a strike. The union needs 75 percent of its members to approve the move in a formal authorization to comply with state law, the Tribune reports.

Claypool has urged CTU to mobilize its members to help district officials beg for state cash, but the union doesn’t seem very interested in joining in.

“They want us to go to Springfield for something we don’t think is good for the schools … And they said, well trust us, we’ll work out a political deal about that later,” Sharkey said. “No they don’t. If they had the votes to work out a deal like that, they’d work it out now. But they don’t actually have a plan right now.”

“They are asking parents to help them and lobby in Springfield, but they don’t want to listen to parents when parents are asking them, don’t close our schools, don’t do this, don’t do that,” Lewis added, according to the Sun-Times. “They don’t listen to parents then, but now they want their help for a harebrained scheme that’s a very short-term fix. We need a structural fix.”

Gov. Rauner also did not appreciate Claypool’s allegations his standoff with state Democrats is to blame for the district’s current situation.

“Chicago Public Schools has been running unbalanced budgets for decades. This is not a recent problem and this is not a problem created by the state,” he said, according to the Tribune.

“And Chicago has been responsible for its own teachers’ pension (fund) for 100 years. So to somehow say ‘Wow, all of a sudden we’ve got a crisis and Springfield caused it and Springfield isn’t doing their fair share,’ that’s just wrong, that’s just not an accurate view.”