Class Action Grievance: Stop Punishing Us For Family Emergencies!

Were you ever written up for calling off work because you had to take a child or parent to emergency room? 

Basically, your choice was to risk letting them die and go to work or risk your job so they don't die. 

No matter what kind of medical documentation you turned in, the mismanager just shrugged their shoulders and wrote you up! To make it worse, you may have had a sellout union official who said nothing nor helped you file a grievance!

Did you know that as of last year, it is ILLEGAL for the CTA to write you up for such a thing?

That's right: It is ILLEGAL to be written up for calling off work to take a sick child to the hospital!

Yeah, despite some of the crappy politicians and corruption going on, the State of Illinois has some damn good laws that protect ordinary people. 

However, who is going to enforce these laws?

It's supposed to be our union presidents. But instead of helping us, they have been helping the CTA mismanagement punish us.  

So I wrote a Class Action Grievance on your behalf to start the process of getting justice for us CTA workers. If we win, there will substantial payouts and reinstatement of many unjustly fired coworkers!

For many years I have been encouraging members to grieve every single sick/absenteeism write up. Now you know why it is important to follow that advice. Unfortunately, our current union president made sure to tell members not to do it—in order to contradict my advice. 

So all of you who were written up or fired over the past year have some work to do. Please file a complaint with the State of Illinois Department of Human Rights now: https://dhr.illinois.gov/filing-a-charge.html .

Even if over 30 days passed since your writeup or termination, I highly recommend you file a grievance. Feel free to use anything from my grievance. Local 308 and Local 241 members can access grievance forms here. 

This will be officially submitted as of February 2, 2026. I will post updates of its status in this article. Please post your thoughts in the comments section below.