* The Illinois AFL-CIO…
Last night, the Illinois AFL-CIO and the Chicago Federation of Labor hosted a Democratic U.S. Senate Forum at IBEW Local 134 in Chicago. Exclusively for union members and their families, the event featured the top three Democratic candidates – Rep. Robin Kelly, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton – in a discussion focused on labor rights, the future of unions, and their plans to address the most pressing challenges facing Illinois’ working families.
The forum was moderated by Jennifer Rodriguez, National AFL-CIO Political and Field Mobilization Director. Candidates discussed a range of topics, including the growing influence of Big Tech in the Democratic Party, affordable housing, healthcare access, and the need for clear regulations and guardrails against Artificial Intelligence (AI). […]
In December, the Illinois AFL-CIO will endorse candidates for the 2026 election, following the recommendations of delegates from across the state at the Committee on Political Education (COPE). Endorsed candidates must demonstrate their commitment to working families through their voting record and/or a submitted questionnaire.
Through its statewide political program, the Illinois AFL-CIO will mobilize union volunteers to canvass, phone-bank, and text-bank the state’s 1.7 million people in union households – ensuring direct, personal outreach from trusted messengers on the issues that matter most to working people.
* Rick Pearson covered the forum for the Tribune…
Stratton, the two-term lieutenant governor under Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, sought to portray herself as the outsider against the Washington “status quo” of her two rivals, who now serve in Congress.
“I can tell you that this is a time where we need real fighters,” Stratton told the audience of union members at the headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 134 in Bronzeville. […]
But Kelly, a 12-year congresswoman from Lynwood, sought to counter Stratton’s call.
“It’s one thing to be a fighter, but you’ve got to be a winner too. You can’t just fight. You have to have things to show for it,” she said, touting her ability to work across the political aisle. […]
Krishnamoorthi of Schaumburg pointed to his five congressional victories in a mostly northwest suburban district that gave Trump 47% of the 2024 vote as proof that he will “always fight for our constituents.”
* Krishnamoorthi got a little off topic on a question about affordability. From the forum…
Moderator: Why do you think housing, food and healthcare are so unaffordable and how would you address those problems in the Senate? And this time we’d start with Congressman Krishnamoorthi.
Krishnamoorthi: I think it’s because of anti-competitive behavior by special interests in Washington, DC, and elsewhere. I’ll give you an example. In the food conglomerate industry, there is a certain concentration of power among the largest companies that basically keep out smaller players so that they can then raise prices, lower choices and hurt workers. That is what is happening every single day. For us to prevail as both a party and as a working party movement, we have to crack down on anti-competitive behavior wherever it exists. I was proud to work with SEIU during the pandemic to crack down on what is happening with nursing homes and their anti-competitive behavior. I am proud to work with others to crack down on big tech, which has put a target on my back as well. And the same is true with other industries. We have to be the folks that are always promoting small businesses, more players at the table, making sure that workers have choices, that consumers have choices, and that the American people always have a level playing field when it comes to dealing with corporations and special interests. I should just say one last thing, which is I believe very strongly that it is incumbent on us to always fight for our constituents. That is why I have managed to win five times in a row in a district that last voted for Donald Trump with 47 percent of the vote. We have to win all voters. And the reason why voters have consistently reelected me is because I stand up for them, and they know that my office and I have been indispensable partners to them as they pursue their American dream.
Moderator: Thank you, Lt. Governor Stratton.
Stratton: Just to clarify, the question is why housing, food and healthcare is becoming so expensive.
Moderator: Yes. I’ll let you address that.
Stratton: Well, that is the quintessential question right now. When I travel the state and talk to everyday Illinoisans, the number one issue is affordability. Things are just too expensive. We are at the grocery store, too expensive. I am the mom of four daughters, and I can tell you that I have adult daughters who are wondering, will I ever be able to buy a home? When I think about what is happening with healthcare, people right now are deciding, do I go to the doctor and get the care I need, or do I pay my bills? Do I pay my rent? That is a false choice. And too many of us are put in positions where we should not have to choose. In the richest nation in this world, we should not have to do that. And so what is happening, why things are getting so expensive, is not just the corporate special interests, but also the attacks that we are seeing on workers. We are seeing millionaires and billionaires and corporate CEOs get richer. This president wants to make sure that he is giving tax cuts to the wealthiest, and he is paying for it on the backs of the rest of us. You know how he is paying for it? Cutting our healthcare, stripping away healthcare from millions of Americans. It is why we need to make life more affordable. And one of the ways that I will do that is I will fight for Medicare for All, because we need to make sure that healthcare is available to everyone. Now, of course, I would work alongside organized labor to figure out what model works best and how to make sure that you can continue having your good healthcare. For those of you that have really strong healthcare, we need to do that. […] We should not live in a country where the government can decide, “I am taking away your healthcare,” or decide you do not have access to food benefits. So we need to raise wages. I want to see a minimum wage of at least fifteen dollars an hour. We did it here, by the way, and I was a part of that here in Illinois, working alongside so many of you who were always in that fight for fifteen. And then when we came in, we got it done. I want to see that happen at the federal level. I want to make sure we protect collective bargaining rights. We passed, and I was a part of the team advocating for, the Workers’ Rights Amendment to make sure that we can protect your right to ask for and negotiate for the best wages and benefits that you can have. I want to see that in Washington. And I will, on day one, be a sponsor of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to make sure that we can protect collective bargaining rights. But mainly we need to make sure that we center the needs of working people and stop letting the wealthy get away with the power in Washington. […]
Moderator: Congresswoman Kelly.
Kelly: I go back to my platform, people over profits. We need to make sure that we are taxing millionaires, billionaires and corporations at the proper rate. If we do that, then we will have money for more affordable housing. We will have money to pay for healthcare. We will have money to pay for a federal minimum wage increase. We will have money to help parents with childcare. And when I think of competition, competition is good, but I want to make sure that competition comes from within America. I sit on the Steel Caucus. I have traveled to different places in the world, and I see the dumping that is done. So it makes it unfair for people working in the United States, because other countries are dumping their goods and making them so cheap. So it hurts those of us in the United States. It hurts working families in the United States. So really keeping an eye on that. And then I will jump into tariffs, not defending those at all, because those are just attacks on people. We want to make things fair for affordable trade and fairness. But what is happening now is absolutely ridiculous. When I think about other people in the solar industry and how the money was clawed back from all of those people, people that had union jobs, good union jobs, and now so many people that were trained do not have those jobs anymore. So I think when you talk about housing and affordable healthcare and all of that, taxing people wisely, looking at what we are doing with tariffs, which is absolutely ridiculous, because we are losing our farmers. They are getting killed. But making sure that we do not have to deal with the dumping and all of that from around the world, because we heard that constantly in the Steel Caucus and other caucuses also.
Please pardon any transcription errors.
