Labor Board Sides With CTU Over Longer School Days

By Soyoung Kwak in News on Oct 23, 2011 6:00PM

In relatively unsurprising news, a state labor relations board voted unanimously to ask the Attorney General to stop Chicago Public Schools from implementing longer school days. The request might also call for the schools that have already signed up for longer school days to reverse their decisions. This is definitely turning into a jarring spectacle that has both the Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Public Schools up in arms.

According to WGN, it appears that the CTU had much to talk about. CTU members felt that CPS school districts were unfairly "coercing and intimidating" teachers to give into voting for longer school days:

The Chicago Teachers Union spoke [sic] filed an unfair labor practices complaint over the longer school days issue. The Union attorney told the labor board that CPS leadership had issued a "broad-sided attack" on the collective bargaining process in allowing schools to use waivers to vote on whether to extend their school days by 90 minutes this school year.

Attorneys for the school districts are maintaining that everything's been under control and that there are no signs of foul play. All of this back and forth between the CTU and CPS will likely to continue. Is there any hope for mutual love and understanding between the Union and the school districts? Our guess is as good as yours.