Feb. 19--A state labor panel on Thursday rejected a Chicago Teachers Union effort to get Chicago Public Schools to pay salary increases mandated by a contract that expired last summer.
The ruling to deny an injunction could save CPS from having to pay CTU members about $26 million in back pay. But the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board unanimously voted against intervening while the union and Chicago Board of Education continue talks over a new contract.
CTU attorneys said they will still push the state board to make CPS pay salary hikes based on factors such as their education and seniority that were part of the expired contract.
The two sides differ on whether CPS should have continued to advance teachers through the expired contract's step-and-lane grid that determined pay increases while talks over a replacement deal are ongoing. The district's latest offer to teachers would have frozen the process for one year.
"It's very much contrary to the public interest for this board to step in and put its fingers on the scale as to what the ultimate settlement has to be," said Andrea Waintroob, an attorney who Gov. Bruce Rauner appointed as chair of the labor board in April.
"For us to force an employer to pay lane and step, when the employer is bargaining to freeze lane and step would really put a poison pill into the negotiating process."
The district's budget does not cover step-and-lane payments, district spokeswoman Emily Bittner said.
CPS said it told the union this summer that it would not distribute the step and lane payments while negotiations over a new contract were ongoing, and that it would not pay those increases through at least the first year of any ensuing contract.
"No reasonable Chicago Board of Education teacher could have expected to receive step and lane when the board had clearly proposed that step and lanes be frozen. That's even without taking into account the board's financial difficulties," Waintroob said.
CPS also argued that a ruling against it on the step and lane issue would exacerbate the district's fiscal crisis.
jjperez@tribpub.com
