On January 11, 2021, the Illinois Senate ratified HB2275, a bill that reinstates the bargaining rights taken from unions representing CPS employees back in 1995. The Illinois House had already passed the bill earlier in the session. This crucial piece of legislation will mean that CPS must bargain with CTU over class sizes, outsourcing, technology, length of school day and year and more. Under the 1995 law, CPS could ignore CTU requests to bargain over those issues and CTU was prevented from striking to force negotiations on them. The bill could also impact negotiations over school reopening plans because CPS has used the 1995 law to argue that they have no obligation to bargain with CTU over reopening plans.
The only remaining step in the repeal of the onerous 1995 language is for Governor J.B. Pritzker to sign the legislation.
