12 Comments - Bridget Dooley - Thursday, Jul 12, 07 @ 8:01 am: It’s a shame that the NLRB ruled that the county prosecuters can’t form a union. The NLRB has made some pretty odd decisions lately as far as who is management and therefore not eligible to be in a bargaining unit. The Kentucky River cases basically redefined a supervisor as workers who spends 10% to 15% of their time “directing the work of others”, no matter if they have real power to hire, fire, or write others up. The Kentucky River rulings affected nurses, but the ripple effect has been felt across many industries. The argument that the Cook County prosecuters are shills for their boss seems slightly different, but it’s hard for me to believe that the Kentucky River cases won’t further hinder their ability to form a union in the future. None of this will change until we have responsible, pro-labor people running the NLRB. And that won’t happen until we have a responsible, pro-labor President in office. - Lula May - Thursday, Jul 12, 07 @ 8:01 am: Rich, It must be getting harder to defend the governors sanity after that AP interview. This state is beginning to feel like twilight zone or bazaaro world. He’s beginning to sound like my cheating first husband. His defense was always: are you going to believe other people or what you think you see ? Or are you going to trust and believe me ? What scoundrels they both are. - Please - Thursday, Jul 12, 07 @ 8:09 am: Hey, maybe we can use “global warming” as the excuse for the budget impasse in Springfield! I mean, it’s thrown around whenever there’s a problem somewhere else in the world. - ASA X - Thursday, Jul 12, 07 @ 10:05 am: It is not the NLRB that prevented prosecutors from unionizing, it was the Illinois Supreme Ct. Ironically, Jack O’Malley, then the State’s Attorney, courted and received union support in his campaigns. O’Malley however, fought unionization. What has never been reported is that the County could agree, if it wanted to, to allow prosecutors to unionize. Some other counties in Illinois allow prosecutors to unionize. Will County ASAs are unionized. If the Democrats in Cook County are so pro-union, why won’t they allow ASAs to unionize? - Cassandra - Thursday, Jul 12, 07 @ 10:17 am: Great, the CTA is going to lay off front line workers but continue to employ thousands of patronage hacks back at their plush offices. How about laying off the hacks and then come back to Illinois taxpayers for some money, after you have successfully negotiated those romised changes in the labor contracts. The union is not going to be disposed to deal when their members are staying home on layoff. Ron Huberman is not only in over his head, he seems to have become a prisoner of CTA’s hacks. Is it possible that soon we will be wishing for Frank Kruesi. Say what you like about uberhack Kruesi, he at least gave the impression of being in charge of his shop. - plutocrat03 - Thursday, Jul 12, 07 @ 10:42 am: Unionization of the professional class of workers has been and always will be a bad idea. I’m glad that this has been prevented - michael k - Thursday, Jul 12, 07 @ 10:53 am: The CTA is laying off front line workers that won’t have any employment when service cuts take effect. With the possibility of cutting 63 bus routes and two train lines, they will be over-staffed. Since there might be a drastic cut in service, there will also need to be a drastic cut in the staff that operates that service. - so-called "Austin Mayor" - Thursday, Jul 12, 07 @ 11:37 am: plutocrat03: “Unionization of the professional class of workers has been and always will be a bad idea.” Why? – SCAM - Plutocrat03 - Thursday, Jul 12, 07 @ 12:39 pm: All we need to do is to look at how the unionization of professionals has worked out so far in Illinois. We have bloated salaries, ridiculous work rules, lack of accountability, inability to discipline bad players and the deeper entrenchment of special treatment for special people. A major part of the loss of management control is the weakness of the managing side. Getting elected does not simply give the position holders any management skill, so when professionals on the Union side go to bat for their issues, there is no skill to try to come to a middle ground and the taxpayer has to pay the piper. - FED UP - Thursday, Jul 12, 07 @ 1:28 pm: The problem is good prosecutors are leaving to go to better paying jobs in large numbers. Public defenders make 12% more money than prosecutors. public defenders are unionized this is a very strange situation and shows you that Toddy Stroger cant keep his word, he fires nurses refuses to pay prosecutors a fair salaray but plenty of money for his family on the payroll. - WHATELSE? - Thursday, Jul 12, 07 @ 1:41 pm: With all the corruption in Illinois is going after sex offenders on myspace the only job that the Attorney General has? - Squideshi - Thursday, Jul 12, 07 @ 6:01 pm: “Members of a state task force on global warming are in the late stages of drafting a report to Gov. Rod Blagojevich but so far have avoided a final vote on especially controversial mandates on industry.” Gee. I wonder why. Environmental problems don’t get solved until democracy problems get solved–full public financing of public elections now! Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.