Chicago teachers have voted to go remote. Other unions are agitating for change. For Democrats, who promised to keep schools open, the tensions are a distinctly unwelcome development.
Few American cities have labor politics as fraught as Chicago’s, where the nation’s third-largest school system shut down this week after the teachers’ union members refused to work in person, arguing that classrooms were unsafe amid the Omicron surge.
But in a number of other places, the tenuous labor peace that has allowed most schools to operate normally this year is in danger of collapsing.
While not yet threatening to walk off the job, unions are back at negotiating tables, pushing in some cases for a return to remote learning. They frequently cite understaffing because of illness, and shortages of rapid tests and medical-grade masks. Some teachers, in a rear-guard action, have staged sick outs.