The Jane Addams Hull House Association, a sprawling, non-profit
social service agency, will close shop today after 122 years – a move
that Hull House staff contends was far too abrupt, especially
since it meant the immediate removal of their health care benefits.
Mark
Tisdale, a volunteer coordinator at Hull House, says that a group of
employees might file a complaint with the Illinois Department of Labor
on behalf of the about 320 Hull House staff. Tisdale says that the office of
Attorney General Lisa Madigan suggested filing the Labor Department
complaint. Read more »
Two weeks before Christmas the workers at Rolf's Patisserie in
Lincolnwood, a suburb north of Chicago, received the devastating news of
the bakery's closure. Today, they gathered to announce a small
victory in the larger battle to obtain what they are legally owed.
Cook County lost more than a quarter of its manufacturing jobs -- or about 89,100 positions -- between 2000 and 2010, according to a Scripp Howard Service analysis of U.S. Census figures.
As labor leaders and Wisconsin Democrats start their push to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker, a new poll shows that majority of residents in the state would like the effort be successful.
In a bold move to occupy Grant Park, the Occupy Chicago movement is marching from the city's financial district Saturday night to set up a new home base in Grant Park.
The group is also calling on the Chicago Police Department to drop the charges on the 175 people who were arrested last week in a show of action at Grant Park.
Wisconsin State Senator Lena Taylor, one of the 14 Democratic senators who fled the state 19 days ago -- "and counting," she says -- was in downtown Chicago this morning. Progress Illinois caught up with Taylor to find out where things stood, when the senators plan on returning, and what, if any, progress is being made with Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his attempt to strip public employees of their rights to collectively bargain. She made it clear that, despite reports, she and the rest of her colleagues have no plans to return to Madison. Here's what she had to say:
Taylor said there has been some movement in the stalemate since the Democrats fled the state, and that one Republican senator now opposes the bill (two more will be needed to vote it down). But she added that Walker's position hasn't changed at all, and that reports that the Wisconsin 14 are planning to come home are not true. Watch her comments:
Finally, Taylor said she wants to return, because the budget battle is just starting to be fought over layoffs and funding for key state programs, and that she is eager to return to have those fights. Watch:
In an upset that no one predicted, 30-year-old Ameya Pawar will be the new alderman of Chicago's 47th Ward. He beat the Schulter machine, built by an incumbent who has been in office years before Pawar was born.
State Rep. Michael Tryon (R-Crystal Lake) says that he plans to sponsor legislation that would force Wisconsin Senate Democrats that are hiding out in Illinois to avoid voting on union-busting legislation to pay Illinois' five percent income tax on their Senate salaries.
The Jane Addams Hull House Association, a sprawling, non-profit
social service agency, will close shop today after 122 years – a move
that Hull House staff contends was far too abrupt, especially
since it meant the immediate removal of their health care benefits.
Two weeks before Christmas the workers at Rolf's Patisserie in
Lincolnwood, a suburb north of Chicago, received the devastating news of
the bakery's closure. Today, they gathered to announce a small
victory in the larger battle to obtain what they are legally owed.
In a bold move to occupy Grant Park, the Occupy Chicago movement is marching from the city's financial district Saturday night to set up a new home base in Grant Park. 
