CHICAGO – Mayor Rahm Emanuel secured an extension of Chicago’s school day and empowered principals to hire the teachers they want. Teachers were able to soften a new evaluation process and win some job protections.

As students returned to the classroom Wednesday after a seven-day teachers strike, both sides found reasons to celebrate victory. But for all the rhetoric, the wider effects of the walkout were difficult to gauge, and experts said the walkout might not resonate far beyond Chicago, a union-built city where organized labor still wields considerable power.

“I think a lot of what went on, to a certain extent, is peculiar to Chicago,” said Martin Malin, director of the Institute for Law and the Workplace at the Kent College of Law in Chicago.