Nearly 90% of Chicago Teachers Union members voted this week to go on strike and return to remote learning instead of going back to school in January.
The CTU sent out a survey to members ahead of an all-members meeting this week asking whether they’d support a “district-wide pause and temporary shift to remote learning” amidst the city’s new spike in COVID-19 cases. According to the results of that survey, 89% of CTU members said they would participate in “remote-work action,” meaning, a strike against in-person work.
BREAKING: 91% of Chicago Teachers Union members who responded to their internal poll tonight said they would participate in a “remote-work action” after winter break.
— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) December 29, 2021
During the all-members meeting, the union discussed other “possible actions” educators could take to “ensure school communities’ and our own safety.” The other actions proposed included holding a meeting of the school safety committee on Jan. 3 and forcing a “city-wide work stoppage.”
BREAKING: Chicago Teachers Union is polling its membership asking if they would “support a district-wide pause and temporary shift to remote learning.”
They’re also asking if membership would be willing to “participate in a city-wide work stoppage.” pic.twitter.com/AOLuOyoXGY
— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) December 27, 2021
The CTU tried to block the city’s return to in-person learning last year, refusing to allow their educators to go back to work until Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot caved to their political demands. One of the CTU’s officials, Sarah Chambers, urged teachers not to return to school, claiming that it was unsafe for them to do so.
“Sign the petition to continue to work remote, to be safe!” she wrote in a now-deleted tweet last January.
“The news is in Lori’s pocket like always!” she bragged “We’ve had so many family members die already, even remote. 50% of my staff, working in the building got Covid, imagine how many would die with reopening!”
It was later discovered that Chambers was vacationing in the Caribbean, while she and other union officials threatened a strike.
