By Jesse Sharkey, President | March 15, 2022 | News

On Wednesday, we have a hearing in front of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board (IELRB) on our unfair labor practice (ULP) complaint against Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s CPS leadership team. The charge is disregarding January’s COVID-19 Related Safety Protocols Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) and unilaterally implementing a mask-optional policy without bargaining with the Union.

Today, based on our ULP charge, the labor board issued a complaint against CPS for disregarding the MOA and its mask requirement. This moves the case to a trial, which is tentatively set for June. Tomorrow, the labor board will hear our request for a preliminary injunction that would require CPS to abide by the terms of our MOA — including the universal masking requirement — until that June trial ends, or until the terms are bargained and changed with consent from the district and all rank-and-file members.

If the labor board rules in favor to grant an injunction, CPS must immediately comply with the masking requirement under our safety agreement until we come to terms via trial or bargaining. In that case, the Illinois attorney general would go to court to seek an injunction against CPS on behalf of the labor board.

If the labor board does not rule in our favor to grant an injunction, our ULP still moves forward to a trial before an administrative law judge, along with the seven (that’s right, seven) other COVID-19-related ULPs we have pending against the district.

Our legal team believes we have a strong case for a preliminary injunction. We hope labor board members are able to tune out the right-wing political chaos around COVID-19 school safety measures, and apply the law as it is written.

In either case, our union will continue to fight to defend our contractual rights, and most critically, the health and safety of you, your students and all families.

We know that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disproportionately affect our Black and Brown students, families and their South and West side communities the most. We also know that we have many children in our school communities who are medically vulnerable or too young be protected by COVID-19 vaccines.

The mayor’s politicization of safety mitigation like masking makes our ongoing advocacy that much more critical, because this pandemic is not done with us yet. Cases are rising again in Asia and Europe. Germany today hit a fresh infection record for the fourth day in a row, while schools in Wales are returning to remote learning and scientists are calling for increased child vaccinations across Britain as cases among children surge.

We will need CPS to bargain with our union, improve vaccination education and outreach, increase testing and more to keep school communities safe. Lives are at stake, so if the masking policy is changed, we will need more from the district in the following areas:

We don’t expect the mayor or her CPS team to suddenly develop a muscle for cooperation, or to stop prioritizing the political needs of a few over the health and safety needs of many. So we continue to exercise every option to support safety, including the powerful tools in our MOA and the following:

We stand up for maximum safety in our schools because we care about each other — our colleagues, students and all of our families. The mayor’s move to violate our agreement is outrageous, but our unity and our solidarity keeps us organized and guides our shared commitment to continue to make safety the top priority.

Click on the image below to jump straight to our landing page with graphics and tips for how to run a school meeting and tackle safety issues in your building.

Chicago Teachers Union affiliations include the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL), the Illinois State Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (ISFL-CIO), the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

Chicago Teachers Union 1901 W. Carroll Ave. Chicago, IL 60612

Phone:  312-329-9100 Fax:  312-329-6200