The city of Chicago has filed an “unfair labor practices” complaint against the city’s public school teachers union after the city was forced to cancel school over the union’s vote to demand that classes move to online-only.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced the move during a press conference on Wednesday, the first full day of the union’s “remote work action,” which the city considers an illegal strike. The mayor also said that a court petition seeking an injunction against the union is on the table.
CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION CLAIMS LIGHTFOOT LOCKED THEM OUT OF ONLINE CLASSROOMS
“I will not allow them to take our children hostage,” Lightfoot said. “I will not allow them to compromise the future of this generation of CPS students. That is not going to happen.”
The union voted on Tuesday to move all Chicago Public Schools classes online due to rising COVID-19 cases and the city’s refusal to cave to the union’s demands on testing and masking. The union says such measures are necessary to keep students and teachers safe from the highly contagious omicron variant.
In response, the city canceled classes Wednesday and Thursday and locked teachers out of their online classrooms.
Lightfoot said that while the city would like to “resolve this at the bargaining table,” she is “considering all our options.”
“We’ll make a determination shortly as to what levers we’re going to pull, depending on whether or not we make significant progress at the bargaining table,” Lightfoot said.
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The mayor also flatly ruled out at least one of the union’s demands, requiring widespread testing for all students, saying, “We are not going to rob parents of their right and their obligation to tell us if they want testing or not on their children. It’s not going to happen. It’s morally wrong.”
