C/U Voters Value Nursing Home at Polls, Continue Support Despite Overall Outcome and Challenges Ahead

Posted on May 2017 by Michael Wilmore

C/U  Voters Value Nursing Home at Polls, Continue Support Despite Overall Outcome and Challenges Ahead

Michael Wilmore

On Tuesday, April 4, voters in Champaign and Urbana voted strongly to support the Champaign County Nursing Home (CCNH) by voting for a modest increase in property taxes, and voting against giving the Champaign County Board authority to sell CCNH. However, turnout outside Champaign and Urbana was heavy due to contested Mayoral and Board seats, and voting there outweighed turnout in Champaign and Urbana, leading to an overall total against the property tax and for giving the County Board authority to sell the home. Continuing the fight to preserve CCNH as a public resource with health care access for the entire community, some County Board members and community activists are pointing to support for CCNH in Champaign and Urbana, while faulting low overall turnout and misleading information regarding finances and quality of care at CCNH for the election outcome.

Strong Support in Urbana and Champaign

Results from the Board Districts 6 – 11 (Urbana and Champaign) were as follows:

District 6: Yes tax 57.9%, No sale 59.4%

District 7: Yes tax 62.6%, No sale 60.7%

District 8: Yes tax 78.3%, No sale 78.5%

District 9: Yes tax 63.8%, No sale 62%

District 10: Yes tax 62.2%, No sale 63.3%

District 11: Yes tax 63.2%, No sale 71.5%

Voters in Champaign and Urbana clearly value the institution that has more than a hundred years of providing health care for the most needy residents of Champaign County.

Faulty Stars

One of the tragedies of the decision made by voters was a mistake in the star rating made by the State of Illinois in grading CCNH. Opponents of CCNH seized on the mistake, as though the star system were as simple as rating hotels.

Cathy Emmanuel, current member of the Nursing Home Advisory Board, describes the problem: “In the last publication of the five-star rating score for CCNH, there was a significant error in one of the three factors that determines that rating. The rating is based on the annual inspection score, staffing levels and quality measures. There was a data entry error by the state which understated the staffing hours for CNAs [Certified Nursing Assistants] by nearly 40%. The state corrected this after it was brought to their attention. The updated calculation and star ratings will be published in May and it is likely it will raise the star rating for staffing and may affect the overall rating.

“The Champaign County Nursing Home has, since 2014 when compared with other homes in Champaign-Urbana, had a higher than average rating for staffing hours and an overall staff rating on a par with other CU nursing homes. Up until February 2016 CCNH had four stars for staffing and two stars for an overall rating. The only nursing home in Champaign-Urbana that consistently outscored CCNH was Clark Lindsey Village, which has a small number of beds—only 25—and accepts no Medicaid patients.”

Scare Tactics?  Vermillion County Privatization

The faults of for-profit privatization are serious, which is why experts in health care support CCNH as a public entity. As Claudia Lennhoff, the Executive Director of Champaign County Health Care Consumers, states:  “Selling the Champaign County Nursing Home to a private for-profit company is not something that our organization would want. We know from large national studies that use data from Medicare, Medicaid, and state Public Health departments that for-profit nursing homes have significantly lower quality of care than public or non-profit nursing homes. For-profit nursing homes have to turn a profit for their shareholders, and they do so by cutting costs, usually in the form of staffing. A public entity has greater transparency and accountability, and the organization is more responsive to community needs because it is mission-driven. CCNH provides key services not available at many nursing homes, like the Adult Day-Care option. Taking care of sick and ailing people is time and labor intensive. When we talk about quality of care, we are talking about very measurable outcomes that directly impact residents’ health and at times, death—things like bed sores, infections, falls, broken bones, choking problems, etc.”

Less than a week after Champaign County voters made their decision on CCNH, the News-Gazette reported that in the first quarter of 2017, Gardenview Manor was cited with multiple serious violations by the Illinois Department of Public Health, for “a condition or occurrence at a facility that proximately caused a resident’s death.” Gardenview Manor was previously Vermillion County’s Nursing Home, sold in a decision by the Vermillion County Board four years ago. Staffing levels were immediately slashed. Although advocates for CCNH were repeatedly charged with using “scare tactics” regarding what happens when public nursing homes are sold, there is clearly a comparable example to what might happen to CCNH in our neighbors’ apparently troubled privatization experiment.

The Champaign County Board Consultant’s Warning Against Closing or Selling—The Future of CCNH

In his February 2017 report commissioned by the County Board, Ron Aldrich recommended against selling or closing CCNH. He concluded that in the event that the Nursing Home was closed, “the needy and the ‘at risk’ populations would likely suffer the most,” or if it was sold, there would be “consequences for the needy and ‘at risk’ . . . if all long-term care providers were for-profit.” These conclusions came from careful examination of the population of CCNH and the skilled care options that are provided at CCNH.

Mr. Aldrich pointed to factors which led to financial strain at CCNH: 1) The cost of construction and accompanying problems in building the current location of CCNH in 2005, which (unlike other County entities) are paid for out of the CCNH operating budget; and 2) the unusually long delay in Medicaid payments owed by the State of Illinois for services already provided by CCNH to residents of Champaign County.

Real financial challenges at CCNH have been made even more severe by the repeated assertions that sale or closure are imminent. Decisions made by families are understandably changed by the perception of instability of an institution. So the current census numbers at CCNH are lower than they have been in many years.

All of these current challenges are not because of a failed model or failure of care, but because of a crisis created by Medicaid delays from the State of Illinois, past construction decisions by the Champaign County Board, and a misinformed and low turnout (20%) vote. However, despite the continued drumbeat to sell CCNH coming from some of our elected leaders, County Board Member Kyle Patterson has joined ten other Board Members in continuing support for CCNH by signing a pledge. Patterson promises that he “will explore every possible option to preserve CCNH as a publicly accountable and quality care institution.”

To allow the County Board to sell out seniors for the sake of expediency would dishonor the hundred-year history of this community providing care to the neediest of citizens in Champaign County. It will not be easy, but Champaign County Nursing Home can still find its financial footing as a public institution for the next hundred years.

Michael Wilmore is currently Treasurer of CC-CARE and an AFSCME Staff Representative.

Posted in Nursing Home, seniors | Comments Off on C/U Voters Value Nursing Home at Polls, Continue Support Despite Overall Outcome and Challenges Ahead

The Art Theater Coop

Posted on May 2017 by Leigh Estabrook

 

By Leigh Stewart Estabrook, President, Board of Directors, Art Theater Coop

The Art Theater Co-op, serving Champaign, Urbana and the surrounding communities, was the inspiration of Sanford Hess, then sole owner of what was the Art Theater, and Ben Galewsky, then president of the board of the Common Ground Food Co-op. In 2011, Galewsky and Hess spearheaded the creation of a co-op able to assume ownership of the theater. In late 2012 the Co-op purchased the business from Hess and assumed his lease.

Cooperative ownership of an art theater is unique. In the U.S., art theaters usually incorporate as “charitable” organizations dedicated to culture and education.

Citizens recognize art theaters as “public goods”—institutions like libraries or schools that benefit all, not just their patrons, even if they cannot sustain themselves in the market. The Art Theater Co-op has been an important experiment for this community: it has changed the way the Theater is perceived and how people engage in its work. But its legal status as a co-op has been frustratingly restrictive.

Most of the capital raised from purchases of shares was used to purchase a necessary new digital projector and make other capital improvements. Only $10,000 of the over $100,000 raised in ownership shares remains, not enough even to cover the remaining debt from purchasing the business. Ticket, concession, and merchandise sales cover basic costs, but are insufficient to provide equipment upgrades, improvements in the building, and special programming. The Art Theater Co-op, unfortunately, cannot operate independent of donations or grants.

Increasingly the Co-op has relied on such things as the annual membership program, sponsorship of the Smart Kids series and the Kickstarter campaign to refurbish the marquee. But as it sought to expand its fund raising, the Theater quickly confronted legal limits to cooperative ownership that affected who could donate and what benefits a donor could receive.

A Brief Technical Aside About the Tax Code and the Co-op

Under the U.S. tax code, the Art Theater Co-op is a not-for-profit, but it is not eligible to receive donations that are tax-deductible to the donor; nor can it receive such status so long as it remains a cooperative. It cannot become a 501(c)(3). Charities like the Champaign Community Foundation can provide grants only to other charities. They cannot support the Art unless it has tax-exempt status of its own.

For the past year, the Art Film Foundation (AFF) has collaborated with the Theater. Founded in 2015 by Dan Schreiber, a former member of the Art Theater Co-op Board, the AFF’s primary purpose is “to promote culture and education through film and cinema, and to foster dialogue through and about film.” It is a 501(c)(3) organization and has been able to support some Art Theater programs from tax-exempt donations; but the AFF can fund programs of the Art, not the Theater as a whole.

Back to the Co-op

After two years of seeking ways to work within the Internal Revenue Service limits, on April 4, 2017, the Board of the Art Theater Co-op in Champaign voted to merge with the Art Film Foundation (AFF). This month Co-op owners will vote on the proposed merger and, if approved, the Co-op will necessarily dissolve: the business will become fully a part of the AFF. Neither one person nor a group of people will own the Art. A not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization will become the owner and thus enable the Theater to become eligible to accept tax-exempt donations directly.

If the merger succeeds, the Art immediately becomes eligible to apply for grants from a wide number of foundations and from the other non-profit organizations. The Art also can hope to raise more substantial donations, both in-kind and monetary, from individuals once those donations are tax-deductible.

The financial challenges for the Art are similar to those faced by other co-ops: the Seminary Coop Bookstore in Chicago and the local Common Ground Food Co-op are but two that have recently sent out letters of distress to their owners. They, like the Art Theater Co-op, need financial support to augment ownership contributions and patronage.

The Art Board has concluded the Co-op must merge with the AFF if it is to keep up with community needs and desires. The Art’s merger with the Art Film Foundation should have little impact on the theater’s day-to-day operations, and General Manager Austin McCann will continue as its gifted programmer and manager.  Because the change can allow increased fund-raising, the Board sees the reorganization leading to more ambitious plans such as major repairs, finding a way to have a second screen or even acquiring its current or another building—little pieces of a better world.

Posted in Art Theater, Cooperative, Nonprofit | Comments Off on The Art Theater Coop

Should Champaign County Create a “Public Bank” to Promote Local Economic and Community Development

Posted on May 2017 by GaryStorm

Born and raised in Urbana, Gary is a retired Dean and Professor of Education and Social Justice at the University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS)

 

A Champaign County Public Bank could receive deposits from county-based residents, businesses, hospitals, institutions of higher education and municipal governments, as well as County government itself, that would be used to help secure loans—including mortgages as well as corporate and public bonds—for beneficial public, private and nonprofit purposes and, in the process, “create new money” to circulate in the local economy and employ more people.

Today, money is created primarily by banks extending loans to borrowers and then managing the new accounts established. When loans are made, a borrower’s account is credited with the amount of the loan. This becomes an IOU (or debt) from the borrower to the bank and, conversely, an asset to the bank. Through this process, new money is created in the form of electronic entries that can be redeemed as cash when needed.

The deposits in borrowers’ accounts are spent on various productive activities designed to bring positive financial returns (or desired capital or consumer goods or services) to the borrowers, either of which typically expands economic activity in the local area. However, the deposits must be paid back to the bank over time with interest. Interest earned by the bank is what makes loans significant assets.

As new money circulates in the local area through the exchange of goods and services, its beneficial effects multiply.  If the loans are mortgages, new homes or business structures are often built—or old ones purchased and improved. If the loans are bonds issued by the county itself or by municipal governments, infrastructure improvements may get made. If the loans are conventional business loans, new or expanded business activity may be stimulated. All of these activities create new jobs!

Before moving on, it should be noted that all banks, public and private, must secure the loans they make by maintaining reserves. Bank reserves are the currency (or bank capital) that is not lent out to a bank’s clients. A small fraction of the total deposits (typically 10 percent) is held internally by the bank in cash vaults or deposited with the central bank. The reserves exist to ensure that assets are available to cover expenses incurred by loans that fail or by unusually high rates of withdrawal of bank deposits (so-called “runs” on the bank).

For public banks, an approach for establishing sufficient reserves to cover the above contingencies is that used by the Bank of North Dakota (BND), the only public state bank in the U.S. The BND was set up as the Bank of North Dakota “doing business as” the state of North Dakota. This guarantees that all the assets of the state (its revenue deposits, real estate holdings, pension funds, investment securities, etc.) and, if necessary, its taxing powers are available to the BND to secure loans it makes. The BND also has an account with the Federal Reserve (central bank) that can be a source of very low interest loans to meet short term emergencies.

Most of the interest income taken in by the BND becomes available to make additional loans for publicly beneficial purposes. A portion could also be returned to the state, however, in the form of dividends. If the state has issued bonds for some purpose, such dividends could have the effect of “balancing out” the cost of interest on the bonds which, in turn, could reduce the state’s need to levy taxes extensively.

There is no reason why a county- or municipal-level public bank could not be established “doing business as” the county or municipality in the same fashion. Thus, a Champaign County Public Bank could be established (perhaps in conjunction with some or all of the municipalities located within it) to do business as Champaign County. This would allow extensive loans to be made which would spur economic growth throughout the County. The interest income generated could be used to bolster the bank’s reserves, extend more loans to the public, and/or pay dividends to the County (and perhaps to participating municipal governments).

Differences between Public and Private Banks

In the case of public banks, surplus income derived from fees, interest, investment securities, service charges, etc. after expenses have been paid can either be retained as reserves or, among other options, be “reissued” as additional loans to stimulate further local development; it would not, however, be treated as profit to be distributed for private gain.

By contrast, private banks, increasingly large national institutions, typically invest this surplus income to generate maximum profit to distribute to shareholders, directors and CEOs who may not even live—and spend money—in the local area.

Private banks usually feel pressure to maximize profits to attract or maintain shareholders and be competitive with other banks. This is often accomplished by investing their surplus income in different ways, including in financial instruments such as derivatives and credit default swaps which can place bank clients at risk unless the banks are deemed “too big to fail” and receive taxpayer bailouts for losses they incur as occurred in 2008. If profits are made from these investments, they are distributed to shareholders, directors and CEOs rather than being reinvested in beneficial local development. In short, they are used to benefit “Wall Street” rather than “Main Street.” The rich get richer; the rest, poorer.

It should be noted that because public banks use their surplus income to address the real economic needs of everyday individuals and of the institutions which serve them, wealth gets distributed much more broadly than it would if money were managed by private banks aiming to serve their shareholders, etc., a small subset of the total U.S. population.

It might be asked whether nonprofit credit unions with their members democratically controlling the organization could not be an attractive alternative to public banks? The short answer is that credit unions often struggle to generate reserves of sufficient size to offer loans supporting large commercial and governmental projects/activities. Their reserves would not include the extensive revenues and other assets of at least one government entity as occurs with public banks. Credit unions are better used for smaller financial transactions like home mortgages, auto loans, and small business loans.

Would a Champaign County Public Bank siphon money away from smaller, locally-owned private banks or credit unions and threaten their survival, or could it cooperate with these institutions in ways that benefit them and the local groups/organizations they serve?

For example, with its substantial reserves backed by one or more unit of government, could a county-level public bank subsidize or otherwise support the activities of locally-owned private banks and credit unions in ways that make them more competitive with large national banks? In exchange for these institutions agreeing to focus their efforts on supporting local economic development, could a public county bank act as a “mini-reserve bank” to these institutions by backing up their financial commitments directly, extending them low interest loans when necessary, or otherwise helping them to reduce the costs of their services (e.g., interest rates charged clients, especially low-income clients)?

Or could a county-level public bank cooperate with locally-owned private banks and credit unions by using the latter’s facilities, employees and/or technologies (e.g., computer hard- and software) to deliver at least some of its own financial services, thereby enhancing, through decentralization, their clients’ access to services? Further, could a few of these institution’s directors serve on the governing board of the public bank, ensuring coordinated communication, planning and problem solving? These forms of cooperation could improve the financial services available to county residents, businesses, and other organizations.

Residents of Champaign County should consider attending meetings being scheduled at the Independent Media Center (IMC) in downtown Urbana to discuss creating a public bank in the area, and/or implementing other economic reforms described elsewhere in this issue of the Public i (see notice).

 

Posted in Economics | Comments Off on Should Champaign County Create a “Public Bank” to Promote Local Economic and Community Development

Green Bay Packers—A Better Model for Sports Ownership

Posted on May 2017 by Neil Parthun

In the past months, the National Football League (NFL) has been the focus of popular anger from its fans. First, the Rams successfully petitioned to move from St. Louis to Los Angeles. The San Diego Chargers followed suit by relocating to Los Angeles too. Most recently, the Oakland Raiders decided that they will be heading to Las Vegas.

In each case, the billionaire owners of the respective franchises held their fan bases hostage by demanding either significant renovations to their home arenas or the construction of brand-new stadiums with taxpayers covering much of the bill. If the local communities and state would not socialize the cost of billionaires’ private wealth development, then they risked having their team ripped away and sent to another city willing to provide such benefits to the owner.

Similar threats abound in the sports world and are nothing new. This is largely standard operating procedure for most professional sports owners who are eager to generate revenue that comes from having a shiny new arena. But people opposed to this behavior may find a solution with one of the NFL’s own teams, the Green Bay Packers.

The Packers are located in one of the smallest markets in professional sports—Green Bay, Wisconsin. The team struggled economically during its first few seasons. By 1923, the franchise was about bankrupt. The way the team chose to handle this problem was unique, and has not been seen in pro sports since. Instead of selling the Packers to a new investor and uprooting the team to a new municipal base, the owners instead decided to allow local fans to buy ownership shares to keep the team financially solvent. As such, this established the stockholders of the franchise as the collective owners of the team. The Green Bay Packers were the first (and currently only) non-profit, community-owned professional sports team in the United States.

Rather than make demands on the local municipality to spend millions of public dollars on refurbishments to their home stadium, Lambeau Field, the Packers sell ownership stock in the team to finance the costs. Fans and supporters of the Green Bay team are the ones who voluntarily fund these ventures.

Owning stock shares provides no dividends, no equity and provides no privileges to get much sought-after game tickets. Shareholders are afforded the ability to vote for the board of directors and attend the annual meeting. Yet the most recent offering from December 2012 to the end of February 2013 to fund fixes to Lambeau Field saw over 250,000 shares sold at $250 per share. Fans are eager to be a part of this collectively owned franchise.

While many sports team owners consistently levy the threat of relocation to get more money, that is impossible with the Pack. The bylaws prevent any one person from owning such a significant amount of shares. Even if the local fans eventually decided that they wanted to sell the team to a private entity, any greedy motives would not bear fruit. The Articles of Incorporation for the Green Bay Football Corporation explicitly state that if the Packers ever moved out of Green Bay, any profits generated would be given to the Green Bay Packers Foundation solely for charitable purposes in the area. So there is no financial incentive to move the team.

Few fans gripe about the cost of concessions at the games, because they’re aware that 60% of the proceeds are funneled back into funding local charities and charitable causes. Volunteers and organizations are allowed to fundraise by working the concession stands on the Thursdays, Sundays and Mondays when the Packers play at home on the “frozen tundra” of Lambeau. Instead of fattening the pockets of a ridiculously wealthy owner, significant amounts of money are going towards helping the community and making Green Bay a better place for its residents.

While the NFL passed rules in the 1980s that eliminate this kind of ownership, and the ever-increasing valuations of franchises make this a significant challenge, the model of the Packers provides a framework for what sports fans and political activists should clamor for: supporters of the team funding the construction, fixes and refurbishments of their arena. No more conservative, right-wing reactionary owners using fans’ money to bankroll all sorts of noxious political causes. The fans may not become the most successful owners, but they’d never threaten to uproot the team or demand public financing of their private wealth development. After seeing the recent spate of teams leaving host cities or the horror shows of the McCourts’ owning the LA Dodgers, Donald Sterling’s tenure with the NBA’s LA Clippers, Dan Gilbert of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Dan Snyder of the NFL’s Washington football team—can the fans really be any worse? The Packers aren’t just a football team. They’re a model for how we can do sports better for cities, communities and athletics.

— Full disclosure: I am an owner of a share of Packers ownership stock after their 2013 stock sale.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Green Bay Packers—A Better Model for Sports Ownership

Worker Co-ops in Illinois and Their Future

Posted on May 2017 by Jacqueline Hannah

Jacqueline Hannah

Jacqueline Hannah has been a manager and organizer in the US cooperative movement for 12 years, merging her passion for local just economies with her desire to empower individuals and communities to create their own solutions. Originally from the Chicago suburbs, Hannah has been a C-U resident now for over 20 years.

The future of work is hard to predict, the one thing we know for sure is that it will be changing, fast. Powerful forces are trying to ensure these coming changes of automation and increased globalization benefit the financial elite at the expense of the world-wide working class. While the challenges ahead are uncharted, we do have a powerful tool available to us that have worked in the past through times of great worker upheaval: worker co-ops.

In Illinois, we have a little-known history of worker cooperatives, which are business enterprises owned by the workers, each having an equal stake and vote in the business. While we do know that hundreds, possibly thousands, of worker-owned cooperatives were organized during the early US labor movement in the 1880s, we have little record of their existence in this state.

Many states started putting cooperative business statutes on their books in the early 1900s that dictated what kinds of cooperatively owned businesses could form and under what guidelines. These laws were created state by state, each one different. The Illinois Cooperative Act of 1918, formulated in the early years of the last century, was still on the books, unchanged, until 2016. It had little to recommend itself to forming a worker cooperative, and much to hinder it, and so dampened the development of worker co-ops for many decades in this state.

In 2015, a working group was formed to change the law. “One of the concerns people had was that the existing law did not allow service-based worker co-ops to form under the Co-operatives Act,” says Rebecca Osland, Policy Associate at the Illinois Stewardship Alliance (ISA). Osland formed and headed up the working group that studied the law and how to best change it. “This was a fairly simple fix to the IL statute, and so in 2016, Illinois Stewardship Alliance worked with State Rep. Will Guzzardi and State Rep. Anna Moeller to open the Co-operatives Act to all kinds of business. Previously, the law was restricted to grocery and farming type co-ops, and manufactures of items, such as flour, meal, boots, shoes, and apparel. The 2016 legislation scratched out these specific business types, and simply allowed one type of co-op to be any business operated by its shareholders—worker co-ops!”

While Osland’s organization’s mission is to cultivate sustainable local farm and food systems in Illinois, ISA felt strongly about taking up the work to amend the IL statute to make it easier to form worker co-ops in the state, because of the potential impact of worker owned co-ops on the food system. “We took an interest in making it possible for worker co-ops to form along the local food supply chain, though the new law we helped move forward is not limited to these types of businesses.” While the changes proposed to the Cooperatives Act did pass and go into place in 2016, so far the impact on the worker co-op movement in Illinois is hard to gauge. It turns out there are strong reasons why a group of workers forming or taking over a business might not want to form under the Cooperative Act in Illinois. “Here’s the key: workers in a corporation are presumed to be employees, or at least it’s a big grey area. And there are many burdensome requirements of employment laws,” explains Sarah Kaplan, an Illinois attorney who specializes in cooperative law. Kaplan currently recommends that workers forming a business they intend to run in a cooperative manner not use the IL cooperative statute, but instead form as an LLC so the workers can be treated under the law as the owners rather than employees of the business, which the Illinois Cooperative Act still does not allow.

The legal bramble matters, and likely can be pointed to as one reason the worker co-op movement in Illinois is still “nascent, but it is growing,” according to Brian Van Slyke, worker-owner at The TESA Collective,  a worker cooperative that creates programs and tools for social and economic change. When asked about the growth of the worker co-op movement in Illinois, Van Slyke shares, “I believe I hear about new worker co-ops popping up every couple of months, most specifically in Chicago, where I live.” But while worker co-ops are popping up now in at least the Chicagoland area, Van Slykes says the laws still need addressing to make Illinois conducive to worker co-ops. “There’s actually a push to get legislation passed in Illinois that would make incorporating a new business as a worker co-op easier, which could help the movement boom—but that effort has hit several roadblocks. Also, there’s been efforts in the past to start a worker cooperative network in Chicago that hasn’t quite gained enough traction.” Van Slykes sees positive signs on the horizon, though, for the movement, as organizations like Democracy at Work, a non-profit that advocates for worker cooperatives and democratic workplaces, come forward to support worker co-op organizing in the Chicago region. Kaplan also sees growth on the horizon for the Illinois worker co-op movement, and hopes to take part in helping to make it happen. “The Sustainable Economies Law Center and some partners have created something called Worker Co-op Academy. I’ve been thinking of offering that in Chicago, and hope to take action on that in the near future.”

Outside of Chicagoland there is as yet little stirring of the worker co-op movement in Illinois, but certainly just as much need for worker empowerment. Both in Chicago and nationally, there are trends in the types of businesses that tend to organize as worker cooperatives and they may be a good place for those in C-U to begin the discussion of worker empowerment through worker cooperative formation. “I’ve seen a lot of worker co-ops become established in industries that typically take advantage of low wage workers and freelancers. Two of the biggest examples, I think, are tech collectives (like companies that build websites) as well as coffee shops,” shares Van Slykes. “Worker cooperatives give employees access to a kind of control, stability, and self-determination they normally don’t have in traditionally exploitative industries.” The TESA Collective, Van Slykes’ organization, has also created a number of resources for groups and communities to use to explore how to start worker cooperatives. They offer a free documentary, Own the Change, about starting worker cooperatives, as well as other educational tools.

When asked if ISA could take a role in educating on and supporting the worker co-op movement in the rest of Illinois, Osland was open to the idea, but clear the call to do so would have to come from their members and communities they serve. “There seems to be a lot of interest around the country in figuring out how to remove additional barriers to make it easier for cooperatives to form. Those who are on the ground working to launch cooperatives should schedule meetings with state and federal elected officials and talk with them in their districts about the value of cooperatives and the barriers that they are hitting. Organizations such as Illinois Stewardship Alliance may be able to help, but we rely on our members’ and partners’ participation and input so that we can maximize the impact of our resources and staff. Working together, we can strengthen our local economies and communities.”

 

 

Posted in Economy, Worker Cooperatives | Comments Off on Worker Co-ops in Illinois and Their Future

Trump Administration Fascist?

Posted on May 2017 by David Prochaska

The “highly unusual,” “unprecedented” Trump administration is leading us into “uncharted territory,” but where exactly? Since last November’s election, some commentators trying to understand what happened have used the “F” word, fascism, but without defining it. Many more have avoided it altogether as too toxic and pejorative, preferring instead terms like “authoritarian” and “populist.”

Yet a strong argument can be made that White House Senior Advisors Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller, and Deputy National Security Advisor Sebastian Gorka are fascists. Also, that Breitbart and other “alt-right” outlets, such as the Daily Stormer, plus billionaire donors Robert and Rebekah Mercer are fascist. And when Trump channels in tweets and speech Bannon, Miller, Breitbart, and other alt-right sites, he is repeating their fascist sentiments.

In The Anatomy of Fascism, Robert Paxton defines it “as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity.” He goes on to identify “a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants” that works “in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites.” This recalls Richard Hofstadter’s The Paranoid Style in American Politics, which he characterized by “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.”

Paxton’s discussion is important for two additional reasons. Instead of viewing fascism as a binary—either it is or it is not—he lays out five developmental stages. These stages—his second point—can apply anywhere, anytime, and not simply to the classic cases of Hitler and Mussolini. This renders them applicable and useful for the present.

Stage 1 is the creation, and consists of individuals, isolated cells or groups that talk about national humiliation, lost vigor, and the failures of liberalism and democracy. In the U.S. this goes back to the original “America First” movement in the early 1940s of Charles Lindbergh and others, to the late 1950s’ and early 1960s’ John Birch Society, and Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign.

During stage 2 these fringe individuals and splinter groups form a larger group or party that takes root in the political system. Stage 2 corresponds to the self-styled “movement conservatism” of the last 40 years. It swept intransigent Tea Party Republicans to power in 2010.

Stage 3 marks the seizure of power over the government. Typically, the takeover is nonviolent; it occurs often in alliance with conservatives. Mussolini was asked to form a government in 1922; Hitler was named German chancellor in 1933. In the U.S. stage 3 occurred November 8, 2016 when Trump took power through the Electoral College but not popular vote, giving right-wing Republicans control over all three branches of government.

Yet it is not during stage 3 but stage 4 that the key break occurs with the previous regime. Exercising power generally entails coordination and discipline. But with Republicans battling among themselves, the question today is: how far down the road of coordination will the Trump administration get?

In stage 5, fascists choose between radicalization and entropy. Although “Fascist regimes have to at least produce an impression of momentum—‘permanent revolution,’” only Nazi Germany pursued radicalization to the point of self-destruction.

What is most worrisome and most dangerous is how the alt-right has gone mainstream and been normalized. It has been brought into the White House with Bannon, Miller, and others, while Trump retweets Breitbart and other alt-right sites.

The extent to which Republicans have enabled Trump and the alt-right is cause for serious concern. In 1920s’ Italy and 1930s’ Germany, political groupings from the center to the radical right went along in lockstep with the far right. Today, Congressional Republicans and their corporate friends are repeating the error.

At the time of writing, Bannon was the key. His worldview consists of what he calls his “three verticals or three buckets.” “The first is kind of national security and sovereignty.” “Sovereignty” puts “America first.” Bannon and Trump’s aggressive “America first” nationalism is the opposite of 1940s’ “America first” isolationism. At its core is white nationalism, or rather white supremacy. White Judeo-Christian civilization is engaged in an epic battle against “radical Islamic terrorism.”

“The second line of work is what I refer to as economic nationalism,” Bannon says. “Economic nationalism” puts “America first” economically. Eschewing free trade, he favors protectionism. Anti-immigration, he bans immigrants and refugees.

“The third, broadly, line of work is deconstruction of the administrative state.”  By “administrative state,” Bannon means both the federal bureaucracy and governmental regulations. Here nothing puts it better than his own language. “I’m a Leninist,” he said in 2014. “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal, too.”   

Lastly, he targets the “fake news” mainstream media. “They’re corporatist, globalist media that are adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda.” For Bannon and his alt-right friends, reporting by the corporate media ipso facto confirms their conspiracist worldview. Thus, we get Trump, channeling Bannon, attacking the mainstream media as the “enemy of the people.”

Bannon and his ilk personify Paxton’s definition of fascism. Hofstadter termed the Bannons of the world “pseudo-conservatives,” right-wing radicals who sought to deny their radicalism—hence the “pseudo”—but who actually expressed “a profound if largely unconscious hatred of our society and its ways.” “They wished to destroy far more than they did to conserve,” another commentator says.

Sounds like Bannon. “I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Both in his films and his politics, “apparently, Bannon just loves to blow stuff up.”

What about Trump? He happily channels Bannon and Miller’s fascist sentiments. In his inaugural address, written by Bannon and Miller, Trump repeated what they had borrowed from archvillain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises (2012). “Today, we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people.”

By the end of January and beginning of February, commentators started referring to “President Bannon.” The New York Times editorialized “President Bannon?” A Saturday Night Live skit featuring Bannon as the Grim Reaper captured this political moment with a pitch-perfect scene in which Bannon took Trump’s seat behind the Oval office desk, relegating Trump to a tiny nearby table.

With the Trump administration, we have begun the fourth stage of fascism, but there are some countervailing factors. “If Trump is a fascist, he may be the most backassward fascist we’ve ever seen,” wrote Corey Robin regarding the late January rollout of Trump’s first Muslim immigrant ban. The Trump administration may get better at handling such matters. But the missteps and demonstrable lies continue unabated. Moreover, Trump has managed to unite all those on the left and center-left, elected Democrats, and brought about an outpouring of grassroots opposition to virtually everything he and his administration do and stand for.

On the other hand, Trump’s February 28, 2017 speech to Congress, despite its lack of specifics, was generally deemed “presidential,” if only in contrast to what had come before. If Trump were to act “presidential,” even desultorily, then not only his rural, white, working class Main Street voters, but also his Wall Street corporate supporters would continue to back him. Key here is Congressional Republicans. It is more likely that they will go-along to get-along than break with Trump decisively. Shudder the thought, but if Trump somehow restrains himself from continually stirring up the opposition, it may well wither.

Yet the bottom line is that anything that anybody says or writes today is even more contingent than usual on future developments. In the Trump era, this means the next couple of days, even hours. Because we simply do not know.

March 31, 2017

This article first appeared at Juan Cole Informed Comment

 

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Trump Administration Fascist?

50th Anniversary of Project 500 Coming Up, Should Be Celebrated

Posted on May 2017 by Terry Townsend

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy called on the nation to take action to eradicate the interrelated and interconnected social problems of African-American citizens in the United States. The country was in a crisis. Many, but not all, post-secondary schools devoted considerable time and resources to answering the President’s call by, for example, forming general and faculty committees, holding conferences, developing new policies and procedures, and hiring new staff.

In 1966, several universities launched initiatives for “disadvantaged” students, including The City University of New York, University of Wisconsin, University of California, and Southern Illinois University. The following year, similar programs were undertaken at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.

Many of these programs had started up as early as 1963. Yet, the academy’s deliberately slow way of doing business resulted in actual launch dates years later. The University of Illinois was among the first to launch its initiative to recruit and enroll the “disadvantaged” student. University of Illinois President David Dodds Henry observed in 1963, “I believe that we must take more positive steps to overcome the disabilities that stem from decades of inequality in our society… as we build ramps for our physically disabled students without violating our standards, I believe that we must offset some of the disabilities arising from racial and social inequality by building psychological and special assistance ramps for young people who need them.” President Henry framed the University’s call to action in the light of that of President Kennedy and the mission of the public Land-Grant University to create a “people’s school.” He created the All-University Committee on Human Relations and Equal Opportunity. He appointed new administrative and academic staff.

At the same time, the Governor of Illinois issued an executive order, the Code of Fair Practice. Faculty member Harry Tiebout and student leader Bill “Squirt” Smith were fighting racial discrimination locally in and around the Urbana campus. External stakeholder actions supported the actions of internal constituencies.

On April 4, 1968, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The United States experienced widespread violence and political protest. It was pandemonium! The ferment at the University of Illinois was unbecoming. This was not a panty-raid riot. Demands for more Black students, staff, faculty, and programs from competing stakeholders and constituencies flooded President Henry’s office, and the office of the first Chancellor of the University of Illinois system, J.W. Peltason. In 1961, Professor Peltason had already written and published the seminal work 58 Lonely Men: Southern Federal Judges and School Desegregation. Appointed Chancellor of the University of Illinois, Urbana campus on September 1, 1967, he had been in that office approximately eight months when Reverend King was killed.

At the same time, there was great tension within, between, and among stakeholders and internal constituencies. Eventually, Chancellor Peltason met with Black Student Association (BSA) executive members and Champaign-Urbana Black leaders, some of who were UIUC students. BSA President Dan Dixon observed, “Chancellor Peltason opened the meeting with a question―What do you want? I turned to fellow student leader Boyd Jarrell, who said we want 500 additional students beginning of the fall semester approximately five months away. Chancellor Peltason gave his approval.”

On May 2, 1968, Chancellor Peltason announced the Special Educational Opportunities Program, popularly known as “Project 500.” He stated: “Specifically, every effort is being made to increase enrollment in the Special Education Opportunity Program from the previously planned 189 to at least 500 students at the Urbana campus for the 1968 Fall semester.” On the same day, he wrote to BSA President Dan Dixon: “The draft report circulated by the ad hoc special education committee contains targets for enrollment of Black students, which, in my opinion, must be increased in order for the University to demonstrate its concern for the crisis which now confronts the nation.”

On October 18, 1968, Chancellor Peltason distributed a document entitled The Special Education Opportunities Program (SEOP), at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that outlined:

“General Nature and Purpose:

“The Special Educational Opportunities Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, commonly referred to as “Project 500,” is one of several experimental programs at universities across the country designed to offer young people from disadvantaged backgrounds―those whose class/cultural characteristic and financial need placed them in a disadvantage in competition with the majority of students―an opportunity to continue their formal education beyond high school. A parallel program exists at the Chicago Circle.

“Through SEOP the University is attempting to do several important things. Among them are

  1. To provide educational opportunity for students who might not otherwise be able to receive it or even to consider undertaking a college-level program.
  2. To increase the numbers of minority group students on the Urbana campus.
  3. To develop educational practices and policies both academic and administrative that will assist and support such students and which might benefit other students generally.
  4. To provide and disseminate to legitimate and responsible educational institutions and agencies information to increase their ability to deal with educational and sociological problems that affect students so identified.
  5. To provide for the students in the SEOP the vital cultural and social experience of meeting and living and learning with and from students from cultures different from their own.”

In the technical sense, “Project 500” was not a program, but rather one initiative of several that used existing services, and external resources. The University of Illinois launched other major initiatives during this transformative period in civil rights. The first was the Equal Opportunity Law Program (EOLP), and on the Chicago campus the Educational Assistance Program (EAP), and the Medical Opportunity Program (MOP). The work by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, President David Dodds Henry, and staff assistance William K. Williams, Joseph Smith, Lucius Barker and Clarence Shelly, to name a few, is important to telling this story.

The impetus to solve the national social problem came from President Kennedy. But the Urbana campus initiatives were not out of step with the national crisis. Undoubtedly, the aftermath of MLK’s assassination, coupled with the advocacy of the UIUC BSA, partnering with Champaign-Urbana Black leaders including Steve Jackson, Al Mitchell, Lawrence “Beno” Williams, Bill “Squirt” Smith and John Lee Johnson, to name a few, were the catalysts that motivated Chancellor Peltason to create and enlarge “Project 500.”

In the final analysis, “Project 500” was Chancellor Peltason’s initiative. It will be 50 years old in 2018. The University of Illinois should commemorate and celebrate one of higher education’s finest examples of how the “People’s School” served the public good.

Posted in African Americans, University of Illinois | Comments Off on 50th Anniversary of Project 500 Coming Up, Should Be Celebrated

The Cops Killed Richie

Posted on May 2017 by Brian Dolinar

Richard B. Turner (Left)

No matter how much training or technology they get, the cops just can’t stop killing Black people. On a Wednesday morning, November 16, 2016, at approximately 8:30 a.m., Champaign police received a call about a “disorderly” subject, Richard “Richie” Turner, a homeless man well known by many students and community members in Campustown.

Richie was chased by police into the back alley of Penn Station. There he was tackled and pinned down by four officers from the Champaign Police Department (University of Illinois Police were not involved in the incident): Officer Christopher Young, Officer Andrew Wilson, Officer Michael Talbott, and Sergeant Thomas Frost. Police pushed Richie’s face into the concrete, cuffed him by his wrists and ankles, what is known as being “hog-tied.” After a short struggle, Richie stopped breathing and laid motionless. Richie’s death was called an accident, but his sister is not willing to accept this explanation. “To me, it was not an accident,” Chandra Turner told me.

What follows is a look into Richie’s death from an investigation conducted by the Illinois State Police obtained by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, a report released by the office of Champaign County Coroner Duane Northrup, and correspondence with Richie’s sister, Chandra Turner, who is determined to find out what happened to her brother.

“Out of Sorts”

Police were responding to a call made by a woman who later told police she was “familiar” with Richie and saw him “almost every day.” On this morning, Richie was in front of the Firehaus bar on Sixth Street with a bottle of wine at 8:30 a.m.. She called police to check on him because he seemed “out of sorts.”

When Officer Christopher Young arrived, Richie was sitting on the ground in front of the Home Town Pantry convenience store at Sixth and Green. As soon as he saw the police, Richie “abruptly moved around trying to stand up.” He is described by police as “yelling” and “largely unintelligible.” After Young approached him, Richie grabbed a construction sign and threw it on the ground. Young “yelled” at him to put it back and told Richie to “leave the area.”

Richie crossed the intersection at Sixth and Green and headed north. Police then “followed” Richie yelling at him to stop. Richie is described in police reports as “running.” But according to Richie’s sister, Chandra Turner, he had a bad leg from falling one winter and could not have run too fast.

Officer Andrew Wilson called an ambulance, seeking an “involuntary submittal for evaluation.” This story is partly about the failure of police to adequately address people with mental illness, or if they should be called upon at all to deal with people often afflicted by paranoia.

In the alley behind the Penn Station restaurant, police stopped Richie. Officer Wilson was the first to put his hands on Richie, grabbing his right arm. Wilson was aware of Richie’s history of “mental illness” from “several interactions” with him in the past.

Sgt. Thomas Frost wrote in his report that Richie appeared “very manic and was thrusting his arms up and down, back and forth. Additionally, he when he moved his head it moved rapidly from side-to-side.” His said this behavior was a “mirror image” from April 2016 when police took him to Carle hospital for a mental health evaluation.

Relax

At this point, as Officer Young describes it, they all three “fell to the ground.” Police had Richie face down on the concrete. Officer Wilson turned Richie’s right arm around his back. Officer Young was on top of him, with his right knee on Richie’s left shoulder. Young wrote in his report, “I used my right hand to stop Richie’s head from lifting/turning.” While pushing his face into the concrete, Officer Young was “constantly telling Richard to relax.”

Officer Michael Talbott then took hold of Richie’s legs, while Officer Thomas Frost put a “hobble” around his ankles. A police hobble can be tied around the feet, and then connected by a rope to handcuffs. This restraining of an individual by hands and feet is known as “hog tying.” This practice has contributed to other deaths in police custody in Los Angeles and Memphis.

Although Sgt. Frost had a Taser with him, he did not use it. Whether the outcome would have been different is questionable, as Tasers have been linked to deaths in custody.

“At that time,” Officer Young reported, “we noticed Richard was no longer resisting or moving.” When police rolled Richie over on his back, “he did not seem to be breathing.” Richie was pronounced dead shortly after being transported to Carle hospital.

Deputy Coroner Sara Rand concluded that Richie’s death was “accidental,” but a contributing factor was “physical and mental stress during restraint by law enforcement.”

Police interviewed witnesses who give another perspective. Two homeless men were nearby, and although they did not see police kill Richie, they witnessed events before and after. One man followed police in their pursuit of Richie and said they “tackled” him. A second man said he saw police put Richie into an ambulance and heard one of the officers say, “who had they knee on his neck?”

A University of Illinois student was also interviewed. In his opinion, police were “a little aggressive” in the way “one officer kneeled on him.”

None of the four Champaign officers had body cameras.

“Something ain’t right”              

Richie’s sister Chandra reached out to me after receiving the coroner’s report. She was surprised at the test results. Richie was found to have a minimal blood alcohol content (0.004%), he was clearly not drunk. There were also no drugs in his system, only coffee and tobacco.

“He would not be dead if it wasn’t for [the police]” Chandra explained to me. She pointed out that police had Richie’s hand behind his back, and his feet tied. “They didn’t try to save him,” she said. “Something ain’t right.”

I spoke with Champaign Police Chief Anthony Cobb about the incident. He told me there was an internal investigation still underway and he could not comment. Asked when his investigation would be done, he could not provide a timeline.

Richie’s death raises the question of whether police should be used to respond to individuals with mental illness. As I have reported, during the 1990s, Champaign County operated an award-winning Crisis Team, made up of trained professionals who answered calls about people who were suicidal or mentally ill, whether in the local jail, or on the street. Such mental health services were eliminated and privatized by Sheriff Dan Walsh soon after he came into office. Since then, CU has seen a rise of deaths in police custody. In 2015-2016, there were three deaths in the county jail.

In recent years, out of the debate over a new jail, local mental health services providers, county officials, and local police briefly attempted to create a Detox Center for people in need of drug addiction and mental health services, but the idea has been abandoned by several bureaucratic committees.

Sunny Ture, an organizer with Black United Front UIUC, responded, “The murder of Richard Turner is a tragedy for his family and another reminder of the Champaign Police Department’s destructive relationship with the Black community. The many mistakes their officers made have been obscured and ignored because Richard was Black, poor, and homeless. His life did not matter to Sheriff Dan Walsh, who has a history of cutting mental health services in favor of more tools of criminalization. Richard Turner’s murderers should be held accountable for their crimes, and the Champaign Police Department should immediately end the practice of commanding armed officers to interact with people that have mental illness.”

 

Posted in African Americans, African Americans, Homelessness, Police, Uncategorized | Comments Off on The Cops Killed Richie

Our Seniors Are Still Not For Sale

Posted on April 2017 by Josh Hartke

(Josh Hartke is a lifelong progressive activist and a member of the Champaign County Board from central Champaign. He serves on the Nursing Home Board of Directors, and cared for both his father and grandmother before they passed in Nursing Homes.)

Josh Hartke

The Champaign County Nursing Home, with its long, storied history and its extensive ties to the community, is far from being the last choice for those who cannot afford the private Cadillac homes. With its tax support and the charitable support of the community, it provides so much more than the average home that it is indeed of prime quality. When you examine the home, you see that, for the price paid by private-pay residents and for the money generated by Medicaid, it really provides care that is better than most private nursing homes in the county, by almost any measure. That is more quality per dollar, and that is the entire goal of public health care.

The data are there. Public nursing homes, on a consistent basis, provide a higher quality of care in almost every measure taken nation-wide. They have fewer major infractions during inspection, lesser rates of fines, and a lower level of lawsuits laid against them by residents and their families. They often have better paid staff with higher levels of training and benefits, both things which are key to quality care measures.

Staffing is key here. At Champaign County Nursing Home, we not only provide better nursing staff with higher levels of training, but we also put more of them on the floor than almost any other local nursing home. Our ratings show this, when properly entered. Once the state corrected their data entry error, our star rating reflected this increased measure. Plus, anyone who has actually had a friend or family member stay at a nursing home, knows that the quality and caring of the individuals who work with their loved one are paramount to anything. When someone obviously cares for your family member like you do, you feel better leaving her or him at the home. That is why we continuously strive to improve our relationship with our employees and improve their levels of training and knowledge as they move forward in their career.

At the home, we also provide some very specific services that no other home on a similar cost level provides. One is a dental hygienist on staff full-time, as well as regular visits by a dentist. Those in health care, and especially those in geriatric care, know how key mouth and teeth health are to those in nursing homes. It allows them to eat with pleasure, it prevents further disease, and it is key to getting the nutrients needed by those on specific or limited diets. Regular cleanings, simple maintenance, and any necessary extractions are done by staff on site at the home, preventing the need to move any residents. That is especially important for residents with dementia.

Champaign County Nursing Home also provides onsite rehabilitation, something you will not find at private homes. This helps us to bring in Medicare patients from hospitals, which is key to maintaining financial stability, especially with constant Medicaid delays from the state. This keeps our residents out of the hospital, and it helps them get back home in many cases, and that’s where they and their families want them to be. It helps reduce wounds, and it is key to recovery from surgery, especially orthopedic. With our better-trained and higher levels of staff, the home can help folks get back to their full potential.

We also provide full-time psychological staff, which, as anyone who has had a loved one go through the experience of living in a nursing home, is key to any long term health and success of a resident. Keeping their mind healthy is as important as keeping their body so. With our professional staff and years of experience in geriatric psychology, we can provide therapy and activity, as well as medication when it is warranted.

Our in-house optometry is also key to keeping quality of life as important as basic health in our nursing home. Patients having the ability to see their family clearly during visits is key to their mental well-being. Many of our residents love to read, and keeping their glasses prescription current is very important to keeping them at their favorite pastime, especially since reading helps them to keep their mental acuity. Having a regular visit to our optometrist is a part of that.

We also have full-time Nurse Practitioners on staff who provide full levels of care every weekday, including the ability to monitor and prescribe medication. Along with our high level of Licensed Practical Nurse and Registered Nurse staffing, as well as our extremely caring Certified Nursing Assistants, we provide a level of care that is not maintained at any location that takes Medicaid patients, or that does not cost upwards of $500 per day.

There are also quite a few perks at Champaign County Nursing Home that you will not find at any similar private home. We have the General Store, where residents can pick up snacks, toiletries, and the other necessities of the day without needing to venture away from the home. We have the Beauty Salon, which provides all of our residents with hair care and the dignity that comes with looking good. We have regular outings into the community, including shopping trips, trips to the park, and visits to the movies and other events. Our social director plans onsite excitement as well, including cookouts and parties with music and lots of other activities. Birthday parties, for both staff and residents, are often everyone’s favorites.

But that again leads to the magic that is Champaign County Nursing Home. In our campaign to raise its revenue due to a manufactured crisis by the State of Illinois, we have had so many stories of the loving care people received at the home. Everyone from spouses to siblings to children have stories of how their loved one was treated at our home, and most of these stories feed directly into the people that work there. Some of those employees have been there only a few months, some longer than thirty years, but they all make a commitment to caring, they deserve the credit for what happens at the home, not the blame for financial woes caused by a failure of the state.

It therefore becomes the responsibility of the county board to step up and manage this public asset so that it does not become a private for-profit center. If it does, the very advantages that have made Champaign County Nursing Home such a special place for over a century will disappear in the name of personal profits for share-holders or board members of a private entity.

Those who stand for public health care and its many facets must unite around the home. It is our local extension of the greater progressive movement and a desire for a “Medicare for All” system, a single-payer option just like the rest of the industrialized world. Because if we do not care for our own folks in Champaign County, who will? The same people that made promises that failed in the privatization of the nursing home in Vermilion County? Not while I’m a county board member, and not while so many of my colleagues stand with me. While this election may not have worked the way we wanted, it was by no means a mandate. And as far as we are concerned, our seniors are still not for sale.

Posted in Healthcare, the elderly | Comments Off on Our Seniors Are Still Not For Sale

Equal Pay Now, We Cannot Afford to Wait

Posted on April 2017 by Julie Laut

By Julie Laut

On Tuesday, April 4, 2017, I will observe Equal Pay Day, a day that symbolizes how far into the new year women must work to earn as much as men did in 2016. According to the latest statistics, women in the United States who work full time year-round earn just 80 cents for every dollar made by men. The gap has closed significantly since the 1980s, when women earned just 60 cents to the dollar, but even at this current pace the American Association of University Women (AAUW) estimates the gender wage gap will not close until 2152. Data from multiple sources shows that hetero-normative white men continue to dominate pay in 98% of job categories, just one way in which the patriarchal nature of our economic structure continues to devalue women’s work and worth within our society. Women cannot wait 135 years to achieve economic parity. We must educate ourselves on the extent of the issue and find ways to take action now, individually and at the state and national levels.

However useful 80 cents to the dollar is as a reference due to its simplicity, that number flattens an extremely complex issue that impacts women throughout the United States in a myriad of ways. A pay gap persists in every state in the country and throughout 98% of occupations, from the best paid (medicine and law) to the least (janitorial work and service jobs). Statistics show that the gender wage gap is smallest at the top of the socio-economic ladder and widens in lower-paid and lower-skilled jobs. Exceptions to the rule include social work, health education, elementary and middle school teachers, and other so-called “pink collar” jobs where wages historically have decreased as women came to dominate the job category. The gender wage gap also increases as women age, a generational gap that tends to undermine women’s unity on this issue.

While the fight for pay equity will continue at all socio-economic levels, closer attention must be paid to the fact that women in low-income occupations, women whose education stopped after high school, and women of color endure the largest pay gaps. According to the AAUW, the pay gap in 2015 was largest for Hispanic and Latina women, who received only 54% of what white men were paid, meaning Equal Pay Day for Latinas does not come until November! Stretched over a lifetime of work, this gap results in earning losses nearing $1,000,000. Similarly, African American women are estimated to lose nearly $900,000 throughout their work lives as a result of unequal pay.

Parenthood also remains a major detriment to equal pay, with working mothers in the lowest income brackets subject to a higher “motherhood penalty” than higher-income earners and women without children. According to research by Michelle Budig, a professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, working mothers’ income decreases by 4% with each child, whereas fathers with at least one child reap an average pay increase of 6%. The impact of this wage gap on our communities cannot be underestimated. Nearly one quarter of children in the U.S. are being raised by single mothers, according to U.S. census reports, and nearly half of these families live below the poverty line. Without a dependable living wage, single working mothers struggle to afford basic housing and healthful food for their families, and are forced to rely on substandard childcare.

Organizations such as the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and the National Organization for Women (NOW) have fought for pay equity for decades and continue to bring attention to this persistent discriminatory issue year after year. As a result some progress has been made, especially for upper-middle-class women with college degrees. A 2013 report from the Senate Executive Committee Task Force on Faculty Issues and Concerns at the University of Illinois found that a 6-10% gender pay gap persists on campus across units and faculty ranks, far below the 21-23% national median wage gap. Also, legislative action has been taken to attempt to close the gap. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed the Equal Pay Act into law in 2009, which prohibits employers from paying men and women differently for doing the same work, and provides options for filing complaints against discriminatory employers. But the Act clearly has not solved the problem. The AAUW currently ranks Illinois just 24th in the nation in regards to the pay gap. And the problem exists right here in Champaign County where, according to Data USA, a website and visualization engine of public U.S. Government data, the average male salary is approximately $58,500 compared to the average female salary of $48,231, an 18% gap. As recently as 2015, wages for female workers in our area lagged behind males in high-skilled jobs requiring advanced degrees as well as in service industry and manual labor occupations.

So where do we go from here? First, require transparency from employers so that companies and institutions have a harder time denying discriminatory pay practices. We hope that the executive action announced by President Obama in 2016 requiring pay data collection by gender, race, and ethnicity from employers with more than 100 employees will take effect this year as proposed. Second, encourage Congress to update the Equal Pay Act of 1963 to close existing loopholes and “create incentives for employers to follow the law, empower women to negotiate for equal pay, and strengthen federal outreach and enforcement efforts.” Third, work locally to urge our leaders to pass legislation prohibiting employers from utilizing past pay history to determine future pay. Discriminatory pay should not follow an employee from job to job. Fourth, address the “motherhood penalty” through generous parental leave with job protection, subsidized childcare, and options for flexibility in work hours.

And finally, perhaps most importantly, support and encourage women to seek leadership positions. A smaller gender leadership gap will result in a smaller gender pay gap.

Julie Laut, a working mother of two, lives in Urbana

Posted in Feminism, Women | Comments Off on Equal Pay Now, We Cannot Afford to Wait