Our city is fortunate that the numbers around the COVID-19 pandemic have shifted, with deaths, hospitalizations and positive cases low, but CPS buildings are congregate settings where vaccination rates also remain low, especially in schools with majority Black and Brown students on the South and West sides of the city.

Chicago Teachers Union

The Chicago Teachers Union is a labor union representing teachers, paraprofessionals, and clinicians in the Chicago public school system. The union has consistently fought for improved pay, benefits, and job security for its members, and it has resisted efforts to vary teacher pay based on performance evaluations. It has also pushed for improvements in the Chicago schools, and since its inception argued that its activities benefited students as well as teachers. The CTU united several teachers' organizations in Chicago in the wake of a teachers' revolt against banks during the Great Depression. It was chartered in 1937 as Local 1 of the American Federation of Teachers, in which it played a founding role. It was the largest and most active AFT Local until the 1960s. The CTU won collective bargaining rights in 1966 and conducted several strikes during the 1970s and 1980s. In September 2012, the union began its first strike in 25 years. The CTU is also affiliated with the Illinois Federation of Teachers, the Chicago Federation of Labor, and the AFL-CIO. It has more than 30,000 members.

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