On the legality of the Chicago strike:
“Under Illinois’ Educational Labor Act, teachers may strike only for certain matters subject to negotiations; wages, hours, other terms and conditions of employment; specifically the law states that teacher performance is not to be the subject of negotiation or a strike and teacher evaluation is one of the major strike issues.”
So, it may or may not be legal. I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not sure. I thought that it was because I live in NY and NYC has the Taylor Law that makes it illegal for public employees to strike. So, technically, some of the strike is legal and some isn’t. Overall, I would imagine that the strike could be deemed illegal by a judge. We’ll see.
This is why you need to do your research before posting such a wide-reaching opinion post. Since the negotiations involved teacher pay MOSTLY due to a change in hours and number of days it is most certainly legal. I assure you, that if there was a big chance it wasn’t legal, the district would have sought to end the strike via legality arguments.
