Schools
District 300 Teachers' Union Declares Impasse
At least 28 days must now pass before teachers in District 300 can strike. LEAD 300 will continue to negotiate with the district in the hopes of reaching an agreement.
District 300 teachers are inching closer to a strike after its teachers union declared an impasse Monday.
The impasse means the teachers union has at least 28 days before it can strike. Negotiations are scheduled to continue between District 300 and LEAD300, the teachers union, with the next negotiating session scheduled for Wednesday, according to the Northwest Herald.
The Daily Herald reports the main sticking points in negotiations has been class size, compensation and learning environment.
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The District 300's teacher's union, LEAD 300, voted last month to authorize a strike with 97 percent of the union voting in favor of the strike, according to the Northwest Herald.
The vote gave the union's negotiating team the ability to strike if they deemed it necessary and declaring an impasse was the next step toward that, according to a District 300 press release.
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Now that the impasse has been declared, the union and the school board has seven days to submit their final offer to the labor relations board.
Following that, the labor relations board has seven days to review and post the proposals to its website. The teacher's union must wait at least 14 days after the final offer has been posted before beginning a strike.
The strike process has changed recently. In 2011, Gov. Patt Quinn signed into law Senate Bill 7, which made it more difficult for teachers to strike and the process more transparent, according to the Daily Herald.
Nonetheless, several teachers unions in the Chicago and its suburbs have approved strike votes this past year and in recent months. In October, District 46 teachers went on strike for one day and Consolidated District 158's teachers union approved a strike vote.
The Chicago teachers' union went on strike for a week-and-a-half in September, according to ABC News.
Typically, it is unlikely just because a union votes to stirke that it will actually strike. A Daily Herald article notes a strike vote leads to an actual strike less than 25 percent of the time.
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