Progress Illinois

On Saturday, WCPT hosted a three-hour "Salute To Labor" event in Chicago, hosted by Dick Kay and MSNBC host Ed Schultz.  Various labor leaders appeared before the live audience of union members to discuss the issues facing workers here in Illinois and nationwide.

In the context of the current budget battle in Springfield, Tom Balanoff, president of the SEIU Illinois State Council (which sponsors this website), hinted he may be interested in holding some Democratic state lawmakers accountable for their votes come 2010.  "We need to establish ourselves as an independent political power," he said to his colleagues in the labor community.  Citing SEIU's 2007 campaign against a dozen Chicago aldermen who sided with Mayor Daley against the big box living wage ordinance, Balanoff added: "I think all the Democratic leaders ... should remember what happened in the Chicago aldermanic races. And quite frankly, we in labor should really get serious and decide that, if we want to hold these politicians accountable, we gotta deal with them -- not just lobbying -- we gotta deal with them at the polls and we gotta deal with them in the primaries."  Listen:

Internal mp3

Balanoff also talked about the example set in Chicago by the Republic Windows and Hartmarx workers -- both of whom stood up when the banks tried "to push them out, eliminate their jobs, steal their dreams, and ruin their communities."  On the recent, tentative resolution of the Hartmarx dispute, Balanoff said, "I absolutely don't think that would have happened if those workers in that plant wouldn't have stood up and said, 'We're going to sit in this plant and we're going to challenge the decision the bank is going to make."  Listen:

Internal mp3