A new lawsuit seeks to make Chicago’s powerful teachers union and its current and former presidents pay at least $250 million for causing learning loss, income loss and general headaches for Chicago Public Schools students and their families, when the union executed a labor action in early 2022 to protest the Chicago Public Schools’ return to full-time, in-school learning.
The lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, accuses the Chicago Teachers Union, former CTU President Jesse Sharkey, current CTU President Stacy Davis Gates, and the American Federation of Teachers, of allegedly conspiring to call an illegal strike in December 2021 and January 2022, because the CTU asserted CPS did not do enough to protect them from the spread of Covid during that time.
The lawsuit asserts the allegedly illegal actions caused a widespread public nuisance and violated the contract rights of CPS students and families, who should be considered third-party beneficiaries of the collective bargaining agreement between the CTU and CPS.