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AFSCME
Quick Hit
by Matthew Blake
5:29pm
Tue Apr 17

Some Unions Cautious About Infrastructure Trust

Chicago Chief Financial Officer Lois Scott testified at a City Council Finance Committee hearing yesterday that Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed Infrastructure Trust “was conceived with the full-throated support of Chicago’s labor leadership.”

That is not entirely true.

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Quick Hit
by Matthew Blake
2:56pm
Fri Apr 13
3 comments

Protests Against Mental Health Clinic Closings Intensify (VIDEO)

From Christmas Carols calling Rahm Emanuel a Grinch to a proposal that the city pay for mental health care through raising the yacht mooring tax, the Mental Health Movement coalition has spent months energetically fighting the city’s plan to close six of its 12 mental health clinics.

That resistance has escalated. Police arrested 23 protesters at the Woodlawn clinic at 1 a.m., and activists and mental health patients said at a press conference today outside the Woodlawn clinic that there might be more confrontations. Read more »

Quick Hit
by Matthew Blake
6:09pm
Thu Feb 16

Mental Health Employees Receive First Layoff Notices

On Monday, we reported that patients of city mental health clinics received a letter stating when six of the city’s 12 mental health clinics will close and what might happen to their care.

The Chicago Department of Public Health has also sent initial layoff notices to clinic employees – including some of the therapists that are supposed to help patients transition through the clinic closings.

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Quick Hit
by Progress Illinois
10:00am
Tue Jan 31

Op-Ed: AFSCME Debunks Business Lobby's State Budget Report

The following is a statment from AFSCME on the Civic Federation's new report on the state budget.

The patient, state government, is ailing. Symptoms include chronic failure to adequately fund basic services or pay bills, forcing harmful cuts. But this report fails to diagnose the cause, while the bitter medicine it prescribes offers no cure.

Illinois’s persistent mismatch between costs and revenues—its structural deficit—results from a broken and unfair tax system that fails to capture economic growth and squeezes the middle class while granting rich people lower effective tax rates and allowing two-thirds of all corporations to pay no corporate income tax at all.

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Quick Hit
by Progress Illinois
1:45pm
Wed Jan 25
2 comments

Library Commissioner Resigns, Aldermen Send Loving Letter To Emanuel On CPL Hours

Chicago Public Library Commissioner Mary Dempsey has resigned from her position as head of the system after 18 years in the role. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has already announced her replacement, tapping Brian Bannon, Chief Information Officer at the San Francisco Public Library.

“This is a tremendous opportunity to expand the library, engage new users and build new services beyond the four walls,” said Bannon in a press release. “The Chicago Public Library is already a national leader in educational media for teens and I look forward to working with the Library staff to build on that great foundation.”

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Quick Hit
by Matthew Blake
5:45pm
Mon Jan 23

Library Issue Remains Unsettled For Public Employee Union, Community Residents

AFSCME logoThe American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFSCME, which represents city library workers, is calling on the city to return to a 48-hour operating week for branch libraries. Also, AFSCME wants the city to rehire more than 100 laid off Chicago Public Library employees.

AFSCME held a “People’s Library Hours” rally outside three closed neighborhood branches this morning to push for the restoration of hours and jobs.

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