FEDERAL, STATE COMPLAINTS FILED IN EFFORT TO END CHARTER SCHOOL STRIKE
A federal labor complaint was filed Friday in an attempt to end the nation’s first-ever charter school strike.
Acero Charter Schools has filed complaints against the Chicago Teachers Union with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board and National Labor Relations Board to stop the strike.
Court documents claim CTU is “engaging in regressive bargaining” tactics, with picketers harassing substitute teachers trying to enter the schools. One picketer, the filing claims, threatened to call federal immigration officials on a parent bringing their child to school.
According to the complaint, an Acero principal also claimed picketers offered alcohol to a school security guard with minors present.
“Acero’s management is desperate, and our pressure is working,” Jesse Sharkey said in a statement Friday evening. “There is nothing illegal about our strike over wages, benefits, class size and other conditions that are mandatory subjects of bargaining under the federal labor law that governs this contract.”
The complaint asks the board to obtain a court order forcing teachers back into the classroom as contract talks continue.
Teachers and paraprofessionals have been negotiating since May.
“This is a pathetic and predictable ploy, built on a tissue of lies. Our bargaining team is at the table now and intends to work through the weekend,” Sharkey said.
The complaint comes on the heels of a CTU rally at Ald. Ed Burke’s 14th Ward office Friday afternoon. Sharkey, standing in Burke’s office parking lot, blamed Acero’s CEO Richard Rodriguez for the strike.
Sharkey, standing in Burke’s office parking lot, declared: “Rich Rodriguez, we are going to settle this contract, or you will resign.”
Since the strike began, Sharkey and other CTU members have said Rodriguez has not been very active in the negotiating process. They said he has yet to appear at a single meeting over the last seven months of negotiations.
“[Rodriguez] has been working around the clock, meeting with Acero’s bargaining team before, during and after negotiations every day,” a spokesperson for Acero said Friday. “He is deeply engaged and has no greater priority than getting students back in the classroom.”
Burke, whose offices were raided a week ago, spent Friday morning visiting several picket lines at several Acero schools in his ward, CTU members said. He later spoke to about 40 union members and Acero parents in his ward office.
Negotiations will continue as needed through the weekend.