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Illinois

Intelligentsia Workers Vote To Unionize

August 14, 2022 Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times. , , ,
Chicago, Illinois- Managers at Intelligentsia Coffee closed their five Chicago stores two hours early July 5 to call its cafe workers to a mandatory meeting. A month earlier, baristas had filed for a union representation election with the National Labor Relations Board, hoping to join International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1220 (IBEW).Management sent anti-union mailers to employees in response, using the slogan, “Be Curious.” Intelligentsia CEO James McLaughlin told workers they had no need for a union because they were treated so well already. Managers refused to answer any of the workers’ questions. “They said they couldn’t take questions because of NLRB rules, that they had to have a script of everything they said so they could submit that to the NLRB if they needed to,” says Intelligentsia barista Jordan Parshall.

​​​​​​​You Don’t Need A Key If You Can Change The Locks

August 11, 2022 It's Going Down. , , ,
Chicago, Illinois - On Friday morning, August 5th, we threw a party for our neighbors and community outside of a yellow slat-board 4-bedroom on a quiet residential block. An anticipatory buzz was in the air as about 35 people: radicals from homeless encampments, anarchist affinity groups, Maoist pre-party formations, organizations like Chicago Union of the Homeless and the Young Lords, as well as sympathetic neighbors – milled about playing music, painting cardboard signs, fussing over the food distro table, and dropping banners from second-story windows. The occasion? The re-occupation of our home after an illegal lockout the week prior. This celebration was the culmination of a week of agitation against the property management company, scheduled for the very hour they’d announced their intent to change the locks once and for all.

Mothers Of The Movement Fight To Abolish The Death Penalty In Illinois

August 3, 2022 Alice Kim, In These Times. , ,
Illinois - The first time I visited Ronnie Kitchen on death row at Pontiac Correctional Center, I drove down with his mother, Louva Grace Bell. Ronnie was one of the cofounders of the Death Row Ten, a group of Black men, all of whom had been tortured by former Chicago Police Department Commander Jon Burge and white detectives under his command, and all of whom had been convicted and sentenced to death on the basis of tortured confessions. When they came together in 1998, the Death Row Ten enlisted the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) to be their voice on the outside and together forged a visible grassroots campaign that interrupted Illinois’s death machine and led to the exoneration or release of six of their members.

Chicago: Movement Forces The Release Of Chicago Police Torture Survivors

August 1, 2022 Fight Back News. , , ,
A series of victories was won in the past month by the movement to free survivors of torture and wrongful conviction at the hands of Chicago Police Department. Clayborn Smith, Marcellous Pittman, Juan Hernandez, Rosendo Hernandez, Arthur Almendarez, John Galvan, Eruby Abrego, Jeremiah Cain, David Gecht and David Colon have all had historic judgments in their cases. In the case of Clayborn Smith, a decision by the Illinois Appellate Court authored by Justice Cynthia Cobbs reversed the decision of Circuit Court Judge Alfredo Maldonado, finding that Detectives Kenneth Boudreau, John Halloran and James O’Brien had tortured Clayborn Smith into his confession. They granted him a new trial. In turn, Judge Maldonado found, in the case of Marcellous Pittman, that his tortured confession at the hands of Halloran and O’Brien was inadmissible. Marcellous Pittman also had the charges against him dropped by the state's attorney's office. Within the written decisions by each of these judges, it was laid out plainly that these detectives with a history of torture are not credible and should not be called as witnesses.

Chicago Mandated Contracts For Domestic Workers

July 29, 2022 Jason Kerzinski, The Real News Network. , , ,
Chicago, Illinois - As of Jan. 1, 2022, a new ordinance took effect in Chicago aimed at bringing much-needed accountability to an industry that has been, by and large, treated as part of the informal economy: domestic work. Domestic work covers a range of jobs, from nannies and home-caregivers to home cleaners, but domestic workers themselves—the majority of whom are people of color and the vast majority of whom are women—are not protected by most labor laws and are frequently subjected to rampant wage theft and harassment. The Chicago ordinance requires employers to provide workers, regardless of their immigration status, with written contracts codifying mutually agreed terms of employment, including wages, work schedule, and scope of responsibilities.

UPS Workers Protest Firing Of Teamsters Steward

June 25, 2022 Fight Back News. , , ,
Chicago, Illinois - UPS workers represented by Teamsters Local 705 are fired up after Anthony Taylor, a union steward, was terminated this week without just cause. More than 40 drivers and loaders gathered in front of the building entrance at 1400 S Jefferson Street before their shift began on the morning of June 23. The context for the firing and the rally is the beginning of negotiations in August for the contract which expires July 31, 2023. After being sold out by the Hoffa leadership in 2018, followed by a victory with the election of a new Teamsters leadership, members are bent on making gains. After his fellow steward was terminated, Steward Sean Orr spoke out against the company’s forced excessive overtime, ignoring workers’ contractual rights to reduce overtime, as well as more senior drivers being denied the routes they choose.

Chicago Students Want Police Out Of Their Schools

June 6, 2022 Joe Iosbaker, Fight Back News. , , , ,
Chicago, Illinois - On June 2, 250 students at Little Village Lawndale High School (LVLHS) in Chicago walked out of school to demand “Police out!” They marched through Little Village, which is the largest Latino neighborhood in Chicago, to the North Lawndale neighborhood, which is a Black community. The protest was organized by the LVLHS FightBack student group, which called for “Black and Brown Unity.” Other demands raised by the students included equitable funding for all four schools. They explained there are four separate schools within one building. The school which has a predominantly Black student body receives less funding per student than the other three. They also want an end to punitive policies on students. They explained that they want outreach workers and community violence prevention specialists in their schools.

Intelligentsia Coffee Workers Join Starbucks And Colectivo In Unionizing

June 6, 2022 Jeff Schuhrke , In These Times. , , , ,
Chicago, Illinois - As Starbucks Workers United racks up victory after victory in union elections across the country, workers at Intelligentsia Coffee — a small, specialty coffee company based in Chicago — are also aiming to improve their pay and working conditions by unionizing. Last week, dozens of workers at Intelligentsia’s five Chicago cafes and roasting works center filed for a union representation election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). They are seeking to organize with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1220, a union they’ve been in contact with since November. Intelligentsia also has cafes in Los Angeles, Boston, New York and Austin, Texas. So far, the union effort is limited to Chicago.

These Baristas Have Been On Strike For Over Three Months

June 2, 2022 Hannah Faris , In These Times. , , , ,
Detroit, Illinois - At Great Lakes Coffee Roasters, a cafe in Detroit’s Midtown neighborhood, 20 baristas have been on strike since February 16, demanding recognition of their union and a first contact. Calling themselves “Comrades in Coffee,” these workers have launched one of the first recognition strikes — a labor action forcing an employer to acknowledge a collective bargaining representative — that the city has seen in years. Their demands include higher wages and improved workplace safety and benefits. The baristas also say they want to set a new standard for cafes across Detroit, while joining a national movement of cafe organizing. The small chain employs about 24 baristas and cooks across the metro area, in the flagship cafe in Midtown and four satellite locations in local grocery stores.

As Illinois Coal Jobs Disappear, Some Are Looking To The Sun

May 28, 2022 Kari Lydersen, In These Times. , , ,
Matt Reuscher was laid off a decade ago from Peabody Energy’s Gateway coal mine in Southern Illinois, in the midst of a drought that made the water needed to wash the coal too scarce and caused production to drop, as he remembers it. Reuscher’s grandfather and two uncles had been miners, and his father — a machinist — did much work with the mines. Like many young men in Southern Illinois, it was a natural career choice for Reuscher. Still in his early 20s when he was laid off, Reuscher “spent that summer doing odds and ends, not really finding much of anything I enjoyed doing as much as being underground.” By fall of 2012, he started working installing solar panels for StraightUp Solar, one of very few solar companies operating in the heart of Illinois coal country. He heard about the job through a family friend and figured he’d give it a try since he had a construction background. He immediately loved the work, and he’s become an evangelist for the clean energy shift happening nationwide, if more slowly in Southern Illinois. With colleagues, he fundraised to install solar panels in tiny villages on the Miskito Coast of Nicaragua, and he became a solar electrician and worked on StraightUp Solar installations powering the wastewater treatment center and civic center in Carbondale, Illinois — a town named for coal.

The Price Kids Pay: Schools And Police Punish Students With Costly Tickets

May 4, 2022 Jodi S. Cohen, Pro Publica. , , ,
The courthouse lobby echoed like a crowded school cafeteria. Teenagers in sweatshirts and sneakers gossiped and scrolled on their phones as they clutched the yellow tickets that police had issued them at school. Abigail, a 16-year-old facing a $200 penalty for truancy, missed school again while she waited hours for a prosecutor to call her name. Sophia, a 14-year-old looking at $175 in fines and fees after school security caught her with a vape pen, sat on her mother’s lap. A boy named Kameron, who had shoved his friend over a Lipton peach iced tea in the school cafeteria, had been cited for violating East Peoria’s municipal code forbidding “assault, battery, and affray.” He didn’t know what that phrase meant; he was 12 years old.

Student Loans Are A Burden For Black Educators

April 7, 2022 Paige Oamek, In These Times. , , , ,
On April 5, the White House announced it is extending the pandemic-era pause on federal student loan payments through August 31. (It had been set to expire on May 2.) The development followed escalating calls for debt cancellation from teachers, students and advocates, including an April 4 protest put on by the Debt Collective, the first union of debtors. The Biden administration’s decision to extend relief was welcomed by advocates but fell short of meeting the demand for permanent loan forgiveness. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), for example, passed a resolution in March calling on President Biden to use his executive power to cancel student debt and “increase spending in our local community.”

Amazon Warehouse Workers Walk Off The Job In Illinois

December 24, 2021 Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times. , , ,
On Wednesday morning, several dozen Amazon workers at two separate Chicago-area delivery stations staged a walkout to demand raises and safer working conditions, making it the first time the tech giant has seen a multi-site work stoppage in the United States.  Coming just three days before Christmas to ensure maximum impact, the action caps a year of intense organizing and protest by Amazon warehouse workers who have been on the frontlines of both the Covid-19 pandemic and extreme weather events. Organized by the labor network Amazonians United, the walkouts occurred during the morning shifts at the company’s DIL3 facility in Chicago’s Gage Park neighborhood and at the DLN2 warehouse in the nearby town of Cicero. 

Anti-Imperialism You Can Try At Home

October 30, 2021 Mattea Kramer, Tom's Dispatch. , , ,
Robin Rue Simmons had been very curious about the truth of American life as a young person. But it was only after she finished high school, left her native Evanston, Illinois, and returned as an adult — ready to buy a house in the historically Black neighborhood in which she grew up — that she delved deep into her city’s history and fully understood the policies that had kept Black residents poor while enriching their white neighbors. Of course, this isn’t the kind of history that’s taught in school, even if today’s students do sometimes learn unsavory truths about the American empire. Local history is different, perhaps because it can be especially uncomfortable to examine how that empire’s economic plunder shaped our present-day communities.

Illinois Bill Mandates Public Schools Teach Asian American History

July 10, 2021 Jordan Williams, The Hill. , , ,
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) has signed legislation mandating public schools teach Asian American history, making the state the first in the nation to do so. The legislation, the Teaching Equitable Asian American History Act, requires a unit of Asian American history to be taught in public schools beginning in the 2022-2023 school year. As part of the curriculum, students should be taught “the contributions of Asian Americans toward advancing civil rights from the 19th century onward,” Pritzker’s office said in a statement. The curriculum should also include “the contributions made by individual Asian Americans in government, arts, humanities, and sciences,” as well as “the contributions of Asian American communities to the economic, cultural, social, and political development of the United States.”
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