Change of Subject
OBSERVATIONS, REPORTS, TIPS, REFERRALS AND TIRADES
BY ERIC ZORN
(me- a good socialist, laobr supporter if ever one worked for the trib)
The Chicago Teachers Union raises some good points in the formal complaint it has filed with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board.
It its effort to lengthen the classroom day by 90 minutes for elementary students, the Chicago Board of Education is using a provision in the union contract that has traditionally been used to let teachers at individual schools make minor adjustments in the daily or yearly calendar to try to implement a systemwide change that significantly alters key provisions in the agreement.
Administrators have been going school by school offering incentives to staffs that vote to work a longer day. It's analogous to the owner of a unionized factory going department by department and offering bonuses and other goodies to workers who agree to ignore major parts of their labor deals. Such an effort makes an end-run around contractual rights and takes the "collective" out of collective bargaining.
http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/09/legal-victory-would-be-a-pr-defeat-for-teachers-union.html