The Latest Breaking News from CTU

CPS employees will get same benefit already available to other city workers beginning with 2023-24 school year.

A Chicago tax on financial transactions, a proposal that’s been repeatedly floated from some progressives, is off the table in Springfield.

CHICAGO — One warm evening last July, SEIU Local 73 President Dian Palmer got a call out of the blue from Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, who wanted to meet.

For a coalition of young voters and those from communities of color, Johnson represented the prospect of a refreshing change

The union has spent years fighting the policies of the political establishment. Now, one of its own must deal with the realities of governing.

Today’s update is about an eight-minute read that will brief you on the day’s biggest stories.

It starts with declaring independence — in action, not words — from the powerful Chicago Teachers Union. City Hall belongs to every Chicagoan, and Johnson will eventually have to make decisions that CTU and other unions won’t like. That’s part of the job.

The union "has an outsized impact on working families who have no other choice on where to send their children...that power, combined with a mayor who is essentially a wholly owned subsidiary, would make them a dangerous force," says one former Chicago Public Schools executive.

Once Johnson and voters know how city departments are doing, it will be easier for him to obtain broad support for necessary corrections.