* My friend Tom Irwin’s new musical project is fascinating. Tom found a diary in the attic of his family’s farmhouse written by a teenager named Harry Glen Ludlam over a hundred years earlier...
As I read through the pages, Harry’s world again came to life through his daily, personal recollections. Shucking corn, a trip to the 1893 Chicago world’s fair, Gypsies on the farm, walks in the woods, lessons on his cornet, the tragic death of a schoolteacher, his grandma’s passing and the family’s decision to sell the farm and move to the state of Washington were all recorded in a plaintive and sincere style.
* Tom started a KickStarter account to fund his “Sangamon Songs” project and he’s just a few hundred dollars shy of his $3,500 goal.
* Joe Walsh and his ex-wife will both have to appear in court next month over allegations about Walsh owing $100K in back child support, according to the Sun-Times.
* Jack Coladarci, the lawyer for Laura Walsh, answered questions today about Walsh’s claim that he had a “verbal agreement” to lower his child support payments…
“He would tell Laura, ‘I’m not making any money. I can’t afford to pay child support.’ So she would agree to take a reduction in the support. But she never gave up her right to collect that support,” Coladarci said. “She had to use her own money to cover him and his expenses at the times when he wasn’t making payments for the kids’ education and everything else. She had to get something to help out, and it was still tight. There were still tuition issues with the schools. Him treating her like a bank isn’t fair — taking out an interest-free loan, we think that payment in full is appropriate.”
* Coladarci also disputed that copies of Walsh’s canceled checks prove anything…
Coladarci said Friday that his initial review of the checks show they were for other obligations — and not for the monthly child-support obligations.
* And Coladarci criticized the congressman for using his taxpayer funded office to send out press releases about the case…
Under his congressional seal on a statement sent Wednesday to reporters around the country, Rep. Walsh said Coladarci and Laura Walsh “broke Illinois state law” by “blatantly and knowingly submitting false information in her pleading.” […]
“We’ll stand behind everything that’s filed,” Coladarci said. “Congressman Walsh is having his congressional office issue statements against her — that’s an interesting use of taxpayer money. She doesn’t have those resources.”
Frankly, either way this looks bad for Walsh. He should’ve settled this thing quietly and moved on rather than doing his usual oppressed victim schtick.
* The folks at School District 300 who oppose an extension of the Sears Economic Development Area are making some big promises…
If the EDA is allowed to expire in 2013, the District will realize a minimum of $14 million per year in increased revenue - our share of payment of property taxes on the EDA properties.
Not if Sears leaves, you won’t.
* But this is fascinating. The Village of Hoffman Estates controls the Economic Development Area money. It acquired the failing Sears Centre Arena two years ago via a Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure process. The Sears EDA extension legislation includes language that allows Hoffman Estates to buy up public buildings with the cash it gets from the fund. So, the antis have an interesting theory…
We believe that Hoffman Estates is desperate to extend the EDA so that they can use it to pay for the Sears Center and pay to operate it over the next 15 years and here is why:
Hoffman was recently forced to purchase the flailing Sears Center Arena for somewhere in the area of $70 million dollars because it has become a white elephant and its owners were ready to abandon the property and walk away;
Hoffman has promised THEIR tax payers that they would do whatever they could to not put the burden of the failing Sears Center on them;
Suddenly Hoffman files legislation to re-write the EDA statute to let them use the EDA to pay for the Sears Center for them and to pay to operate it for the next 15 years – AT OUR EXPENSE! They have NO problem putting the burden of their white elephant on us;
* Buried in a bill introduced this week by House GOP Leader Tom Cross is a provision that allows Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle to take control of public worker pension funds…
The legislation would give Emanuel control of the pensions funds for police officers, firefighters, municipal employees, city laborers, park district workers and Chicago Public Schools teachers. Preckwinkle would hold sway over the pensions for county and forest preserve employees. […]
The police pension board has four mayoral appointees and four trustees chosen by the union’s 17,000 members, including about 10,000 officers and almost 7,000 retirees. The legislation, House Bill 3827, would dissolve the board within 90 days of passage and set up a new panel with four mayoral appointees and only three representatives of pension fund members.
Also voicing opposition to the measure Thursday was Anders Lindall, a spokesman for the Chicago-based Council 31 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents 5,000 county employees and about 3,500 City Hall workers. Lindall said the blame for the pension crisis belongs to politicians who avoided contributing government’s share to the funds.
“To consolidate power in the hands of politicians is a recipe for disaster,” Lindall said. “It would take the funds in the opposite direction of the transparency and accountability that Mayor Emanuel says he wants in city government.”
Illinois ranks first nationwide when it comes to nonprofit groups reporting late payments from the government, according to a survey last year by the nonpartisan Urban Institute. More than 80 percent of Illinois groups say their money doesn’t come on time.
Not to be nitpicky, but those sentences should probably be past tense since the study was conducted before the tax hike.
* Roundup…
* Hearing scheduled for teachers union’s complaints about longer school day pilot
From the end of the spring session until now, Quinn and legislators have met to discuss the gaming legislation, said state Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, who sponsored the gaming package in the House.
“We’ve had a lot of conversations, but there’s been no negotiation. The governor’s office is unwilling to negotiate and unwilling to tell us exactly what he wants in a bill,” Lang said.
Hawthorne Race Course president Tim Carey says top track officials lobbied Quinn Friday on the bill, which would allow slot machines at their racing venues. They say that’s key to their survival because it would make purses bigger and make them more competitive with tracks in other states.
But Carey says Quinn didn’t divulge his position on slot machines. He says the governor listened to what they had to say.
* The Question: Do you think Gov. Pat Quinn should have been actually negotiating the gaming bill details this past summer, or is he right to wait until the veto session to lay out his positions? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
* This is essentially the heart of the entire federal case against Bill Cellini…
Stuart Levine testified Thursday at Bill Cellini’s corruption trial that when he was seeking payback for state investments being made with a movie producer’s company, he wanted Cellini to be the go-between.
Levine, who has admitted using his position on state boards to seek bribes, said he had engineered a hold on a new $220 million investment from the Teachers’ Retirement System, where he was a trustee, with Capri Capital principal Thomas Rosenberg — producer of the Academy Award-winning movie “Million Dollar Baby.” He said he was trying to squeeze out a $2 million finder’s fee to be split, or $1.5 million to the campaign of then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
“I asked Mr. Cellini to deliver a message that Mr. Rosenberg was going to be expected to make a political contribution (to Blagojevich) and he (Rosenberg) should call me.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Niewoehner asked if Cellini agreed to send that message.
“Yes,” Levine said, adding later that, based on his conversation with Cellini afterward in May of 2004, he thinks the message was delivered.
But Levine also said he didn’t tell Cellini how much that contribution should be, and he also didn’t tell Cellini about the alternative possibility — the $2 million finder’s fee. That’s because, Levine said, he didn’t want to get another person involved to share the proceeds.
But later there was more laughter. Cellini had talked to Rosenberg, and he was giving a full report to Levine. Rosenberg was balking at the prospect of forking over cash in exchange for state business, saying he didn’t want to deal with Rezko.
It’s really not much when you just read the transcript. Without the sound, it’s bloodless. Here’s what it looks like:
Levine: If Tom [Rosenberg] feels that he’d rather walk away from the money than deal with Tony, then there it is (laughs).
Cellini: (laughs).
Levine: I mean this ain’t me (laughs).
Cellini: Well, it was a, he said, he said I’m sick at my stomach. Tom said I’m sick at my stomach. This is, this is makin’ me sick at my stomach.
Levine: (chuckles)
Cellini: And I said, well, hey, I said it sure ain’t as hell didn’t make me feel too good ’cause I figured I’ve been kinda flyin’ under the radar here, you know.
They’re funny guys, amusing. But those are the words. When you hear it on tape, as we in the courtroom heard it Thursday, there’s a remarkable difference. They’re ridiculing someone who faces a choice: Pay up or walk away.
How could they laugh?
Because they were the guys with the juice, they were the ones who allegedly controlled the government, and when you can use the government as your hammer, that’s better than a dozen tough guys because the government carries the force of law. So corruption is only a piece of it. That’s just money. But corrupting the government, which is supposed to be fair, and the effect that corruption has on the people, that is stealing something too. It steals the presumption of honest treatment.
Federal prosecutors Thursday presented the most direct evidence yet that power broker William Cellini allegedly took part in a scheme to force a Hollywood film producer to contribute to ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich or lose a $220 million state investment deal.
Jurors in Cellini’s corruption trial heard a secretly recorded phone call from May 7, 2004, in which Cellini told the government’s main witness, Stuart Levine, about producer Tom Rosenberg’s initial reaction to getting caught up in the Blagojevich shakedown attempt.
“After that conversation with the defendant on May 7, did you believe the defendant had delivered the message to Rosenberg you asked him to deliver?” prosecutor Chris Niewoehner asked Levine over the objection of defense attorney Dan Webb.
After Judge James Zagel overruled Webb, Levine offered jurors a one-word answer: “Yes.”
* Not much Tweeting from the courtroom today, so no live blog. But Dave McKinney did send this one out…
Prosecution now playing pivotal 5/8/04 tape between Levine and Cellini. Cellini says Rosenberg says of Kelly, Rezko: “I’ll take them down.”
* Related…
* First wiretaps played in trial of longtime Springfield power broker
* Cellini tapes go back to early days of Blagojevich investigation: Prosecutors are playing tapes that are more than seven years old at the corruption trial of millionaire businessman and Blagojevich co-defendant Bill Cellini. The tapes are conversations Stuart Levine had on secretly recorded phone calls.
Public employee unions balked at pension reform when it was introduced this spring because they claim government workers already have “paid their fair share” by kicking in “8 percent, 9 percent or more from each paycheck” to their retirement funds.
But when it comes to public school teachers in Illinois, paying their own way to retirement isn’t the norm.
An analysis by the Illinois Policy Institute of data from the Teachers’ Retirement System, the Illinois State Board of Education and hundreds of teacher contracts found that in nearly two-thirds of districts across the state, teachers don’t contribute the full “employee share” toward their pensions. In fact, most of these districts don’t require their teachers to contribute anything toward their own retirement. Instead, the contributions are paid for or “picked up” by school districts – and by extension, local taxpayers. During the 2009-10 school year alone, this little-known perk cost taxpayers more than $430 million. This subsidy is on top of what the state – and by extension, state taxpayers – pay into the teachers’ retirement funds through district-paid employer contributions and state funding. To give a recent example, in 2010, the state paid more than $2.2 billion toward TRS to cover the “employer share” of the benefits.
What they don’t say is that taxpayers are gonna pay one way or another. These pension pickups were negotiated by teachers unions, usually in lieu of pay raises. So, the districts will either pay for raises or pick up pension payments. It’s a wash.
*** UPDATE *** Actually, it’s not a wash. This saves taxpayer money in the long run. As a commenter noted, by not taking a pay raise, the teachers are foregoing higher pensions. Their pensions are based on their salaries, not their salaries plus a pension pickup. No salary increase means their future pensions aren’t increased.
CPS Reimbursement: $32.5 million in increased pension reimbursement from CPS
All government agencies need to stand on their own financial footing. The City should not be paying for pensions for employees of other agencies. CPS should be responsible for all of its own pension obligations. This is the smokes and mirrors way of budgeting of the past.
* Receive reimbursement of 50 percent of pension costs for CPS non-teacher pensions, and commitment for full reimbursement in future years.
So, the mayor moves that pension funding off his budget, but the schools will have to find a way to pay for it with more cuts.
Also, over 21 percent of Emanuel’s $238 million “Investments, Financing and Growth” section of his budget is from a one-time source - refinancing city debt. And then there’s this…
When Mayor Rahm Emanuel trotted out his city vehicle sticker fee hike, he billed it as a modest $15 increase aimed at those who drive SUVs and trucks that cause the most damage to city streets.
What the mayor didn’t highlight is a change he’s pushing in how those large passenger vehicles are defined. Instead of setting the bar at 4,500 pounds, as it is now, Emanuel wants it set at 4,000 pounds.
Such a change means 184,000 more Chicago vehicles would fall under a pricier sticker class. And their owners would pay $60 more for a sticker.
On Thursday, the union said the running tally nationally was 3,256 in favor and 3,915 against.
Oy.
* The Tribune has a story about a suburb contemplating banning drivers from eating. It’s your basic he-said, she said, and not once is this finding mentioned from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration…
Eating while driving is about as dangerous as manually dialing a cell phone, but less distracting as reading or changing CDs.
Lots of Illinois Democrats believed after the 2010 national Republican landslide that the worst had passed. They harkened back to 1996, when President Bill Clinton rallied from humiliating midterm losses and decisively won re-election. The Illinois House had been taken over by the Republicans in 1994, but the Democrats wrenched it from their control two years later. The Senate Democrats just barely missed winning a majority in their chamber that same year.
The Democrats also were comforted after last year’s election because they knew they would be redrawing the new district maps this year. Last year’s Republican surge gave them a road map for how to avoid 2012 trouble. They could shore up their weaknesses and create new opportunities in General Assembly and congressional districts.
But the economy has worsened and, unlike Clinton did during the government shutdown, President Barack Obama hasn’t yet managed to turn the tables on the Republicans.
Obama’s job approval rating in his home state is below 50 percent, according to a recent poll. And Obama’s approval rating is way lower than that outside of Chicago and Cook County. Nothing has worked. His policies have fallen short and his recent move to the left, demanded by the rank and file, has not stemmed his slide in the polls.
The whole environment is just cruddy for the Democrats. On top of the national problems, there was that big state income tax increase back in January, which has stuck in everybody’s craw. It’s almost constantly in the news because of a steady parade of corporate CEOs threatening to leave Illinois. The last tax increase disappeared from the zeitgeist pretty quickly because it had bipartisan support. The Republicans refused to lend a hand this time around, and the Democrats are getting all the blame.
Gov. Pat Quinn’s job approval ratings have never been all that high, but they slipped below 30 percent in the most recent poll. His unsteady leadership isn’t helping matters much. And the General Assembly isn’t doing itself a whole lot of favors by failing to reverse the madness.
As a consequence, the Democrats could easily be looking at a bloodbath next year, particularly Downstate. The House Democrats caught a break in 2010 when the Republicans wasted most of their energy in suburban Cook County. The Republicans could’ve picked up a lot more seats if they had fielded decent Downstate candidates and spent more cash in the region. They’re not making the same mistake this time around.
Top legislative Democrats are saying this has been the worst candidate recruitment year they’ve seen. They had been counting on a backlash against the Republicans (a la 1995-96) to help recruit good candidates, but instead they’re encountering malaise, indifference, fear and even hostility.
The situation may be worse than they realize. My father went door-to-door for Obama in his U.S. Senate race. Obama used to call him “Brother Miller.”
Dad loved him.
When Obama decided to run for president, Dad attached giant, custom-made “Obama ’08” stickers to both sides of his vintage 1963 Cadillac convertible. He christened it the “Obamallac” and drove all over Iowa to advertise his guy before the 2008 caucuses.
I called Dad on Tuesday night and he told me he was watching the Republican presidential debate. I asked him why and he said he’s so bitterly disappointed in Obama that he is looking around for someone else to support.
If Obama has lost the Obamallac owner, he’s in gigantic trouble, and so is the rest of the Democratic Party.
Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. told The Daily Caller on Wednesday that congressional opposition to the American Jobs Act is akin to the Confederate “states in rebellion.”
Jackson called for full government employment of the 15 million unemployed and said that Obama should “declare a national emergency” and take “extra-constitutional” action “administratively” — without the approval of Congress — to tackle unemployment.
“I hope the president continues to exercise extraordinary constitutional means, based on the history of Congresses that have been in rebellion in the past,” Jackson said. “He’s looking administratively for ways to advance the causes of the American people, because this Congress is completely dysfunctional.”
* Rival Democrat Debbie Halvorson’s response via press release…
“In Rep. Jackson’s entire congressional career, he has never introduced a single jobs bill,” said Halvorson. “Now, he’s calling on the President to suspend the constitution? As a representative of the people, you don’t give up when you hit a roadblock and throw the constitution out the window – you keep working to get something done. The people of the 2nd district deserve real leadership, not rhetoric.”
In Jackson’s sixteen years in Congress, Jackson has proposed ten separate amendments to the Constitution – none have passed.
* Jackson video…
* Meanwhile, Raja Krishnamoorthi’s latest press release tries to put the best spin on his latest fundraising numbers…
Raja (RAH-jah) Krishnamoorthi (krish-nuh-MOOR-thee) has raised nearly three quarters of a million dollars since launching his campaign for Congress in the 8th District of Illinois–a figure that puts him well ahead of his Democratic primary challenger, Tammy Duckworth.
Krishnamoorthi holds a lead over Duckworth in both funds raised and cash on hand. According to his campaign’s latest filing with the Federal Election Commission, Raja raised $726,184 and has $635,997 cash on hand.
Trouble is, Tammy Duckworth outraised Krishnamoorthi in the most recent quarter, $476,894 to $313,536. However, federal candidates almost always do their best fundraising in the first quarter because their money is coming from longtime friends and supporters. This is Duckworth’s first quarter. The second quarter is more difficult because their buds are often capped out and they have to find new sources, ergo the decline for Krishnamoorthi.
Duckworth had David Axelrod and that entire crowd helping her raise funds, so it was expected that she’d do well.
Also, we don’t know how much of this money is for the primary and how much was raised for the general. Those are two different pots and they are rarely ever disclosed in press releases.
…Adding… Duckworth’s campaign says $24K was raised for the general.
…Adding More… Krishnamoorthi’s campaign refuses to disclose how much was raised for the general.
Bottom line: If Team Tammy hoped to bluff Mr. Krishnamoorthi out of the race, it’s not going to happen, not with these kind of numbers.
But they’d still like him to pick up his war chest and run instead in the north suburban 10th District, where the Dems so far have not been able to recruit a top-tier contender and his odds of winning might be better.
* There are a couple of people Tweeting from the Cellini trial today, so maybe we’ll have more updates. As always, BlackBerry users click here and everybody else can kick back and watch. I’ll be posting stories from earlier this morning so you can catch up with what’s going on…
Thursday, Oct 13, 2011 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
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“We depend on a steady stream of electricity around the clock to meet the demands of our customers. Even the most minor outage can cost thousands of dollars. We need a modern grid that offers increased reliability to meet the demands of the 21st century economy.”
A modern, reliable grid is essential for Illinois’ effort to rebound from the recession.
“A modern smart grid is necessary to avoid outages that cost local businesses money and hurt their ability to compete. A modern grid will position Illinois to attract new business and new jobs.”
-John Estey, President and CEO, S&C Electric Company, Chicago
For more information on the benefits of grid modernization through SB 1652, visit www.SmartEnergyIL.com.
House Speaker Michael Madigan says he’s guarding the sanctity of the state constitution, but he’s actually protecting a cherished legislative perk.
To nobody’s surprise, the speaker says he won’t allow his chamber to vote on whether to accept Gov. Pat Quinn’s amendatory veto of a bill that purported to reform the shamelessly abused General Assembly scholarship program. That means lawmakers can keep gifting friends, relatives, staffers, lobbyists, political donors, campaign workers and others with free tuition to state universities.
Madigan’s spokesman says the governor overstepped his authority by rewriting a bill that would have prohibited lawmakers from awarding scholarships to their own families. The version Quinn returned to the legislature would instead eliminate the program entirely. Without a vote to accept or override that change, the bill will simply die. So it’s back to the status quo: Anything goes.
Madigan would have us believe that’s the lesser of two evils. The speaker himself has voted to eliminate the scholarships on a number of occasions, after all. But we can’t have the executive branch stepping all over the legislative branch, can we?
That’s a self-serving dodge. We agree that the amendatory veto has been a vehicle for all sorts of gubernatorial mischief over the years. But the constitution grants the governor authority to recommend specific changes to legislation, and it’s not as if Quinn attempted to graft a pet cause onto an unrelated bill.
* Subscribers know more details, but Gatehouse picked up my story on a working document that’s being discussed by House Democratic appropriations chairpersons…
Gov. Pat Quinn, the Illinois Gaming Board and other state agencies want the legislature to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in spending to the state budget when the General Assembly returns later this month for its annual veto session.
The chairs of the five House appropriations received a document — first reported in Capitol Fax, a political newsletter and blog — laying out dozens of requests.
Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, chairwoman of the appropriations committee that allocates money for human services, said the list simply lays out potential options. Whatever additional spending is eventually approved will have to be offset, however, to remain within the $33.2 billion spending cap approved by the House earlier this year. The same cap was adopted by the Senate, by default, when it approved the House budget.
“This is a moving target. There are a lot of things on the table,” Feigenholtz said. “We have a great deal of pressure from a variety of agencies that got cut.”
Kelly Kraft, a spokeswoman for the governor’s budget office, described the requests as “a mix of discussions, draft calculations and requests.”
Keep in mind that while the list totals $700 million, the General Assembly won’t go above its spending limit. Some things will have to be cut even if all of the governor’s vetoes are upheld. Gatehouse didn’t go into the cut details. Subscribe for the full list, but here is their shorter one…
$17.2 million for the Monetary Award Program (grants to college students)
$35 million for a backlog in estate tax refunds
$49 million for the Illinois Gaming Board, requested if the governor signs the pending gambling bill
$89 million to restore school transportation reimbursements
$36 million for the Department of Corrections
$10 million for indigent burials
$75 million for the transition of people with mental health and developmental disabilities out of state institutions to community-based facilities
Not all of those requests were made by the governor. The restoration of funding for indigent burials, for instance, was made by the funeral directors’ association. The school transportation reimbursements were vetoed by the governor and some want that veto overturned.
* In other news, Gov. Pat Quinn said yesterday that US Sen. Mark Kirk’s report on the state debt situation was exaggerated…
Quinn said the state is making progress in cutting its unpaid bills.
“I think (Kirk) probably exaggerated some of the numbers. We have whittled down the bills we have to pay, we still have a long way to go. You know if it’s just woe is me and a doomsayer - I don’t think that’s particularly helpful,” Quinn told reporters Wednesday at an unrelated news conference.
* Roundup…
* Deal struck on Medicaid asset transfers: The agreement, approved unanimously by the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, deals with the practice of “gifting” assets to relatives and other people. The new rules, which take effect Jan. 1, make Illinois one of the last states to implement the federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.
* Bad move by Quinn on IPA boss: Juracek is the fox in the electricity hen house, with a record of dragging consumers behind her ComEd pickup truck. Her role as a ComEd employee in the 2006 power auction would have cost Illinois consumers about $1 billion until federal regulators forced a refund. The Illinois Power Agency was born directly because of that rip-off, in which ComEd’s parent company, Exelon Corp., won 97 percent of ComEd’s 41-month contracts. The price was $70.14 per megawatt hour, although an Argonne National Lab and University of Illinois study found that the cost to supply electricity in the region was from $20 to $28 per megawatt hour.
* Crain’s has a story online about how Mayor Rahm Emanuel is “stepping up efforts to keep CME Group Inc. from moving out of town” because of its high tax burden. Emanuel told the magazine’s editorial board yesterday that he has repeatedly met with CME Chairman/CEO Terrence Duffy…
“They came and asked me to help them in Springfield. That’s what I’m doing,” Mr. Emanuel said. “One company should not represent 6% of the corporate income tax (payments).”
But this is what caught my eye…
The mayor declined to be drawn into a discussion of rumors that Mr. Duffy increasingly is frustrated that Gov. Pat Quinn has not yet presented a plan to help the exchange. “I’m not answering any hypotheticals,” he said, adding, “I’m working on” getting the company relief in Springfield.
I checked around yesterday and, indeed, Duffy is upset at Quinn for not getting off the dime. I called Gov. Pat Quinn’s spokesperson yesterday, but didn’t receive a return call. I’ll let you know if they see this post and want to say something.
“We have very viable alternatives. The traders can stay wherever they want, but the company can certainly go to wherever it suits its best interests…
“Being a good steward [of shareholders’ money] is not paying six percent of the aggregate tax bill of the state of Illinois in corporate taxes. We are the number one taxpayer in the entire state of Illinois… but we are far from the largest company in the state of Illinois.”
Duffy also explained why his company is paying state income taxes even though people are trading out of state, or even out of country…
“We dont’ know who our ultimate end user client is. They have to go through one of our [intermediaries]… so we don’t know who their clients are. So, their client could be trading out of Mumbai or trading out of Asia, but because of the apportionment laws in Illinois, we are getting taxed on all those particular trades. They have to have the mailing addresses where our clearing entity is. Our clearing entity happens to be in Illinois.”
His conclusion…
“First, they don’t deserve these tax dollars, but we are being treated completely unfairly.
Members of Ford Motor Co.’s UAW locals are being instructed to prepare to strike as votes to ratify a proposed labor contract have turned sour.
Rejection of the pact would undo the company’s plan to add at least 1,100 jobs through a third shift at its Torrence Avenue plant on Chicago’s Far South Side as part of pledge to hire 12,000 workers nationwide over the life of the four-year contract. […]
In the first ratification vote Tuesday, workers at one of the Ford’s two assembly plants in Wayne, Mich. rejected the pact, with 51.1% of them voting no. The UAW Local 900 represents nearly 4,000 workers in Wayne. […]
“If we strike, they will use whatever resources necessary to continue operating their plants including the use of scab labor.” [according to a Facebook post by the UAW’s Ford Department.]
Another Chicago-area union member characterized the strike call as a typical bargaining tactic. “Chicago is in the process of voting,” said the member. “They were picked to do an early vote with the hopes of turning it around to use as a tactic for reassurance to vote for it.”
A strike at Ford involving scab labor would be a gigantic mess for everyone involved.
Workers at Ford Motor Co.’s Chicago assembly plant voted overwhelmingly to reject a tentative four-year contract agreement with the automaker — setting the stage for a possible national strike, said a local union official early Thursday.
Seventy-seven percent of 2,317 workers at the Torrence Avenue plant who voted rejected the contract, said Grant Morton, United Auto Workers Union Local 551 plant chairman. The plant employs 2,700 UAW workers.
With the Chicago voting results in, the contract proposal now has more no votes than yes votes nationally, Morton said.
“We were given direction earlier today to prepare for a strike,” said Morton, who added the national union’s executive board will take a strike authorization vote if the deal is rejected nationally.
But union leaders have said the Ford offer was a good deal.
* ComEd has a new TV ad running in Chicago. The Adelstein Liston spots started last night on cable TV news stations and will run through next Tuesday in the evenings. Rate it…
