Dispatches from Chicago's south side.
The Chicago Teachers Union on Thursday filed its first major legal salvo in the battle over a longer school day, charging that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his education team are waging an illegal campaign to circumvent the union.For the most part we already know that CPS and the teacher's union have been at each others throat with regards to their raises that the Board of Education eventually voted down. Now it's over adding 90 minutes to the school day and with now four schools to adopt a longer school day this year.
CTU President Karen Lewis said Emanuel’s actions amount to a declaration of war.
The union’s complaint with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board came as teachers at a fourth school — Benjamin Mays Elementary in Englewood — voted to waive the existing CTU contract and add 90 more minutes to the school day in exchange for 2 percent raises and other perks.
At other schools, the CTU complaint alleged Tuesday, the district conducted “sham elections’’ with non-union members, “intimidated” some teachers with the threat of layoffs and offered “inducements’’ to others “in an attempt to bypass the CTU’’ and the wages it already negotiated.
“They are going around us to negate the contract with our members, and that is unlawful,’’ Lewis said.
“This is just out-and-out disrespect and war. That’s what this is. This is an attempt to take down and make irrelevant the Chicago Teachers Union because if the CTU goes, they can roll over every union in the city.’’
