* Chicago-Area Labor Strife Leads to Hotline

Employees at a Hartmarx Corp. suit factory in northwest suburban Des Plaines on Monday threatened a sit-in. They’re afraid the company’s main lender, Wells Fargo & Co., is pressing for an owner who will liquidate the plant.

The sit-in tactic helped laid-off employees of Republic Windows and Doors win severance packages in December after Bank of America Corp. cut off the Chicago company’s credit.

Services Employees International Union, the nation’s second-largest union, is setting up the hotline. Jerry Morrison directs the union’s Illinois council.

MORRISON: We know, once we get this registry up and running, we’re going to find probably hundreds of companies across the country that are in very a similar situation.

* Hartmarx Workers Vote to “Sit In” to Save Their Jobs as TARP Recipient Wells Fargo Threatens to Close Factory

* Hartmarx Workers Vow To Fight On

* Door open to union sit-in at Des Plaines Hartmarx plant

* A touch of history in Hartmarx struggle

* Hundreds protest Rove’s central Ill. visit

Hundreds of people in central Illinois have protested outside a closed-door fundraiser that featured Republican strategist Karl Rove.

Rove spoke for about an hour Monday at a gathering sponsored by the Economic Freedom Alliance, a group that opposes the proposed Employee Free Choice Act. The people rallying outside represented unions that support the legislation.

* Community colleges step up for workers

* AmerenIP, ComEd electric drops rates June 1

* CWLP flips on new power plant

* Next round of federal stimulus money falls short of requests

Nearly 400 applications totaling $442 million are chasing the next round of federal stimulus spending on transportation in Illinois. Included is the first section of a 38-mile bike trail west of Springfield.

Problem is, the amount available for such “non-highway” projects is only $28 million.

* Road projects call for cheers plus caution

In an average year in Illinois, more than 7,000 crashes take place in highway work zones, resulting in an average of 2,500 injuries.

Thirty-one people died in construction zones in Illinois last year - up from 21 in 2007. Although the 31 deaths represent a decrease from the 44 killed in 2003, that number is still too high.

The deaths in 2003 spurred passage of tougher laws against speeding in construction zones. In 2006, the state began using photo speed enforcement. More than 7,200 tickets have been issued by photo enforcement units since then.

The fine for speeding in a construction zone is $375. Repeat offenders face a $1,000 fine and possible license suspension.

* Lakefront path’s holes finally getting patched

* CTA adds alerts, more routes to Bus Tracker

* Hurdles and hassles

In response to the now-famous line from a U.S. Olympic official that the U.S. Olympic Committee and the IOC wanted to see some “skin in the game,” the city and state have offered to provide close to a billion dollars in backup funding. Of course, that guarantee is simply a euphemism. Should anything go wrong, then city and state taxpayers will be liable for the deficit.

Why don’t lawmakers — in Springfield, in City Hall, the 50 Chicago aldermen — who voted to underwrite the worst-case scenario have some skin in the game too? That is, if each of these politicians were to be personally liable for, say, $100,000 apiece, taxpayers could sleep more soundly. The same should hold for Chicago 2016 officials: What if each member signed a binding agreement to provide $100,000 toward any cost overruns or revenue shortfalls?

To avoid Illinois’ familiar pay-to-play disease, perhaps every person and group that donated time and services — consulting, printing, etc. — toward the bid thus far should be ineligible to compete for and hold any subsequent contract should Chicago be awarded the Games. And if any portion of the truly laughable commissioned economic-impact report is to be believed, then the billions of revenues the area will amass will be windfalls for some people. How about if they — the hotels and restaurants, developers, construction firms and unions — also put some skin in this game, or agree to have their largesse heavily taxed down the road?

* Jarrett says Olympics waiver allows transparency

* Architecture in Chicago Gains New Life

* Council committee postpones vote on city furlough plan

Mayor Daley’s plan to require 3,600 non-union employees to take 14 days off without pay by Dec. 31 to pressure organized labor to do the same ran into a City Council buzz-saw on Monday.

But Jackson said she has little doubt that the Finance Committee and the full Council will approve the mayor’s furlough plan on Wednesday.

“We’re pregnant. We have to have the baby,” she said.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported last week that 1,100 city employees — but no sworn police officers or firefighters — would receive layoff notices in the next two weeks unless their unions agree to take 14 days off without pay and comp time instead of cash overtime.

* Aldermen to Daley: Give Us More Time

CAROTHERS: Everytime we have to make these big decisions, they always come within one day’s notice. That’s how [the] Midway [lease deal] was, that’s how parking meters were. I mean - everything that’s important, where you need to ask questions and have information, is always right to [the] finance [committee] and right to the vote on Wednesday [at the full city council meeting].

Several aldermen also criticized the Daley administration for not providing enough information at a meeting Monday. A call to the budget department was not immediately returned for comment. City officials say $10-million would be saved if workers took the unpaid days off. The committee is expected to continue the debate on Wednesday, before a full city council meeting.

* Chicago could have nation’s first ban on BPA in baby bottles, cups

Last year, Aldermen Edward M. Burke (14th) and Manny Flores (1st) introduced a measure that would have banned nearly all products made with BPA used by children under 7. That proposal never went anywhere.

Today, they unveiled a softer version and rammed it through a joint City Council committee after just a few minutes of testimony.

The new version would narrow the scope of the ban to “any empty bottle or cup specifically designed to be filled with food or liquid to be used primarily by a child under the age of 3.”

* BPA ban: Chicago City Council panel OKs bid to ban plastic baby bottles with BPA

* Chicago Could Ban Baby Bottles Made With Chemical

* City Council ought to ban harmful chemical

* Ald. Thomas Tunney suspends aide in parking meter controversy

* Asperger responds to Tribune story on FOIA denial

Village President Elizabeth Asperger Monday night labeled as “irresponsible” and a “disservice” a front-page story in the May 3 edition of the Chicago Tribune that highlighted an incident last summer in which village officials refused to make public documents related to its decision to give $1 million in TIF money to help renovate the La Grange Theatre.

* Durbin Sits Down With Moyers

* Bucktown man devises Web app ‘Visible Vote’ to find how your congressman voted

* Debra Gindorf postpartum case: Gov. Pat Quinn’s clemency gives hope to other mothers of slain kids

* Illinois now up to 487 cases of swine flu

* GOP names its own beer: Big Tent Brew

It’s Republican beer, the invention of the Aurora Republican Women group and Walter Payton’s Roundhouse brewmaster Mike Rybinski. And now, it has an official name: Big Tent Brew.