CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- An arbitrator issued Thursday a final ruling ordering Chicago Public Schools to allow clerks, clerk assistants and technology coordinators to work remotely while cases of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to increase throughout the city.
The rationale being that CPS has failed to provide safe working conditions — including ventilation systems capable of mitigating virus spread.
Arbitrator Jeanne Charles ruled that CPS violated Article 14-1 of the CTU contract, which guarantees workers "safe and healthful working conditions." CPS is instead subjecting workers to increased risk of COVID-19 infection for work that can be performed remotely, even as school buildings cannot be determined to be safe without evidence that additional reasonable protective measures like ventilation repairs have been made.
"Reporting to work inside CPS school buildings at this time increases the danger of infection by COVID-19, an airborne, highly communicable, deadly and still not fully understood disease," Charles wrote in a statement. "The only way to eliminate the risk of COVID-19 infection and death is for school clerks, school clerk assistants and technology coordinators to work remotely."
The arbitrator also subpoenaed CPS records identifying schools where employees, vendors, or others have contracted COVD-19, as well the number of workers, their job titles, date of infection and whether workers were in a CPS building during any contagious period.
Charles also ruled that CPS failed to meet the burden of proof that it had reasonably protected the workers it forced back into school buildings, particularly in terms of mitigating the risk of aerosolized exposure to COVID.
“There has been no showing why it would be unsafe for students and teachers, yet safe and healthful for the affected employees to conduct 100 percent of their duties in person where they previously performed mostly all of their duties remotely,” she wrote, also pointing to evidence revealing serious issues with CPS ventilation systems.
"Having ventilation systems in disrepair to the extent reflected does not provide a protective work environment where an infectious and deadly virus can be transmitted through the air.”