Chicago Teachers Union votes to refuse in-person classes and continue remote instruction Dawn Reiss CHICAGO The Chicago Teachers Union voted to refuse in-person instruction Sunday and directed educators to work remotely starting Monday. The decision comes two weeks after the nation s third-largest school district called teachers and staff into classrooms and started to lock them out from remote work. Chicago Public Schools chief executive Janice Jackson had said the action would constitute an illegal strike. “I want to be clear, if teachers refuse to come to work on Monday, that is a strike, that is not a lockout,” Jackson said Friday as the union polled its 25,000 members.
A bill in Springfield would expand what the Chicago Teachers Union could bargain for in talks with Chicago Public Schools, and give it more leverage to force a districtwide continuation of remote learning.
Matt Masterson | January 11, 2021 3:19 pm
(WTTW News)
A victory for the Chicago Teachers Union in Springfield on Monday could mark a change in the way the union is able to bargain with Chicago Public Schools over plans to reopen schools and other issues.
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The Illinois Senate on Monday passed HB 2275 on a 38-16 vote. That bill, which now heads to Gov. J.B. Pritzker for approval, would repeal Section 4.5 of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act, which has limited the CTU’s bargaining power since 1995.
State Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, who sponsored the bill in the senate, said the legislation would “essentially level the playing field on collective bargaining” by giving Chicago teachers the same rights that teachers already have in every other school district statewide.
Illinois Senators voted to repeal a section of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act that limited issues CTU could bargain over. It now heads to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk, although the governor has not said if he plans to sign it.
81 people died on Sunday because of coronavirus-related illnesses. This bringing Illinois’ pandemic death toll to 17,574. Cook County accounted for nearly three-quarters of Sunday’s reported fatalities. In total, 59 of the 81 deaths were reported in the Chicago area, including a Cook County man and woman in their 30s.
Here’s what happened in the fight against the coronavirus in Chicago, the state and the nation.
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Illinois’ pandemic death toll surpasses 17,500
Hospital staff members enter an elevator with the body of a COVID-19 victim on a gurney at a U.S. hospital.
Jae C. Hong/AP Photo (file)
State health officials on Sunday reported an additional 81 coronavirus-related deaths, bringing Illinois’ pandemic death toll to 17,574.