
We Protected Each Other: Another Favorable Covid Decision for CTU Members
As a result of CPS gross mismanagement under Mayor Lightfoot, educators with preexisting conditions were put in harm’s way during the Covid-19 pandemic.
As a result of CPS gross mismanagement under Mayor Lightfoot, educators with preexisting conditions were put in harm’s way during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Union staff just won about $9,000 in back pay for our member Diane McQueen. The settlement is restitution for the weeks that CPS forced her to take a leave of absence in order to protect her health during the Covid crisis.
Learn more about important updates on care room attendants — they’re staying — as well as spikes in COVID and other dangerous viruses, safety recommendations (including vaccines, masking), and how to report safety issues in your school
Thanks to the new rules members have won in their long struggle for safety, some 315 schools now have at least one person assigned to their contact tracing team and, of those, more than 230 have more than one contact tracer. This work is sorely needed because more than two-thirds of those schools have vaccinations rates under 50 percent.
We reached an agreement with Chicago Public Schools in January that guaranteed masking in schools — along with other critical COVID-19 mitigations for safety — through the end of the 2021-2022 school year. Should CPS move toward making masks optional without bargaining to do so safely, we know that this refusal to honor our agreement will have consequences.
The Illinois House passed two bills this week of key importance to CTU members: HB 1167: COVID Administrative Days and HB 5285: Too Young to Test.
Veteran educator Evelyn Colon is not taking any chances when it comes to COVID-19. Thanks to Union vaccination efforts, she and her family are fully vaccinated.
The mayor is so angry at us for winning so much over the past year and a half, she refused to provide even basic safety mitigations.
CTU day of action begins with press conference at Spry Elementary in Little Village, where, last week, 130 students were absent on Jan. 3, and more than 30 percent of students present tested positive for COVID-19.