Chicago City Wire

The Chicago Teachers Union is calling for Chicago Public Schools to slash virtual work days in half citing "stress" over too much screen time.

The union called the eight hour virtual workday "unrealistic and inhumane" in a tweet announcing the petition. The group is requesting screen time be limited to four hours for educators and students ather than the eight hours currently planned.

“We ask that school hours online be shorten (sic),” the petition reads. “If online school was to be 4 hours, students and teachers will have more time for schoolwork, personal lives and themselves.”

While the union cites student “stress” in its advocacy for the shorter work week the petition makes it clear the move is aimed at educators.

“[T]eachers are having a harder time teaching,” the petition reads. “The excessive amount of hours only makes it more difficult.”

Chicago teachers are among the highest paid in the nation with an average pay of over $78,000 in addition to fringe benefits, such as massive pensions that consume 40 percent of school budgets.

The CTU holds an inordinate amount of political sway. From March 2018 to July 2019 the group spent $1.5 million on lobbying and political campaigns. 

Last year the CTU organized its third strike in seven years, which was successful in landing a new contract for the union. Altogether 26,000 teachers and 8,000 staffers walked out on schoolchildren during that strike.

“The CTU is a blight on Chicago and a curse on its children,” Mark Glennon, founder of Wirepoints, told Chicago City Wire during last year’s strike. “It should be obliterated.” 

CTU president Jesse Sharkey, a self-proclaimed socialist, also came under fire last year after establishing a relationship on behalf of the CTU with disputed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.