[updated Feb. 4, 2013] With the Chicago Teachers Union having waged a largely successful strike against the Chicago Public Schools, we can expect to see other public school unions, and maybe other government employee unions, following their example. Strikes allow unions to preserve costly wages and benefits, or block needed reforms, by shutting down...
The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, Council 31 sent a message to its employees last week urging them to prepare for a walkout.
The states largest employee union is urging its members to be prepared for the possibility of a strike.
Faced with the prospect of lean financial times, the West Chicago Elementary District 33 school board decided it would be prudent to reduce automatic annual pay increases and lengthen the amount of time it takes for teachers to reach the top of pay scale
According to union financial reports filed with the U.S. Department of Labor, there are more than 120 employees of the Illinois Education Association, or IEA, and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, or IFT, earning more than $100,000.
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan turned down an invitation to a pension summit sponsored by public employee unions. Madigan sent a firm letter to Michael Carrigan, president of the Illinois AFL-CIO. Carrigan also heads the We Are One Illinois coalition of public employee unions. In my view, the positions of organized labor were taken into...
The time for passing a Truth-in-Collective Bargaining Act is long overdue.
Grayslake sounds like a great place for a mystery. It could be the name of a mansion overlooking a foggy moor upon which a wealthy young heiress was found dead of arsenic poisoning among half a dozen acquaintances, all with serious grudges.
The holidays are over and kids have been back in school for weeks. But students in Grayslake District 46 are back at home now that teachers are on strike.
With the last procedural hurdles cleared, Senate Bill 1556, also known as the "management" bill, will be presented to Gov. Pat Quinn and is expected to receive his signature.
It is a fairly standard piece of Alinskyite strategy: make the argument about personalities rather than principles or results. Find an enemy and make the whole fight about him or her or it. As progressive icon and “Rules for Radicals” author Saul Alinsky himself put it, “pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize...
It is a basic axiom of government collective bargaining: If you have to bargain with a union about anything, you are liable to have to bargain with them about everything, and that includes things that you aren’t supposed to bargain about at all. This why collective bargaining with government employees is such a problem: Even...
On Tuesday Michigan’s Legislature took the final steps in passing Right-to-Work legislation, and Gov. Rick Snyder signed the bill into law. Outside the Statehouse, union protesters became more agitated, tearing down a tent where Right-to-Work supporters had gathered (a handful of people were almost trapped inside the canvas) and assaulting a Fox News correspondent. In...
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE UNION PAC DATABASE The database shows which Illinois politicians have received donations between 2002 to 2012 from PACs associated with: American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO); American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); Illinois Education Association (IEA); Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT); and Service...