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Author Archives: Ricky Baldwin
Anti-Union Rauner, Koch Brothers Aim at a Nation of Wisconsins
By Ricky Baldwin Ricky Baldwin is a longtime community and union organizer who lives in Urbana. Anticipating the Janus decision discussed elsewhere in this issue, Central Illinois Jobs With Justice (JWJ) held a public discussion on February 18 in the … Continue reading
Posted in Labor
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Turning Lemons Into Lemonade! Attacks on Unions & Fighting Back
Turning Lemons Into Lemonade! Attacks on Unions & Fighting Back Sun. Feb. 18 at 1 pm Champaign Public Library 200 W. Green St., Champaign Speakers from Wisconsin join local discussion about the devastating impact of legal changes to workers’ rights, … Continue reading
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“I’m Not Anti-Union”: Governor ALEC and the Hostile Takeover of Illinois (Part 2 of 2)
(Ricky Baldwin is a Senior Field Organizer for SEIU 73, activist with Jobs With Justice, and occasional contributor to Labor Notes, Z Magazine, and Dollars and Sense.) Part One described multimillionaire Gov. Rauner’s stealth attack on the poor and … Continue reading
Posted in Labor/Economics, Politics
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“Not Anti-Union”: Shaking Up Springfield, Shaking Down the State
“I’m probably .01 percent.” – Bruce Rauner, asked if he is part of the wealthiest 1% Chicago equity “salesman” Bruce Rauner succeeded in his first ever election last November with 50.3 percent of the vote, spending nearly $36 per voter … Continue reading
Posted in Labor/Economics, Politics
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Service Employees Fight Back at UIUC
“The … administration has followed a reverse policy of hiring incompetent leadership at the highest prices. If it were up to the university no hourly person would make much more than minimum wage. How are we going to support your … Continue reading
Posted in Labor/Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Flex-n-Gate Disaster, Just the Latest Chapter in a Toxic Story
By Ricky Baldwin When news broke this summer that a toxic cloud of sulfuric acid at a local plant had sent eleven local workers to the hospital, horrific as the story was, many in the area were not all that … Continue reading
Posted in Human Rights, Immigration, Labor/Economics
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Hard Up for Work
By Ricky Baldwin Mary is laid off from her job in food service at the University of Illinois four times a year for a total of four and a half months. During this time, she does not count as unemployed. … Continue reading
Posted in Labor/Economics, Uncategorized
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Letting Them Eat Cake at the University of Illinois
Loudly proclaiming its poverty whenever workers want a raise, the University of Illinois belies this claim through actions like hiring incoming President Michael Hogan at $620,000 a year “base” salary, plus retention bonus and perks. That’s more than a third … Continue reading
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Organizing the Unemployed
A disheveled man stands in a local post office asking for spare change. Another man hands him a dollar and strikes up a conversation, fishers-of-men style. The second man describes a local effort among unemployed and underemployed workers to get … Continue reading
Posted in Labor/Economics
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Labor in a Crucible
IN THE 1880’S, THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR constructed a much broader vision of organized labor than the “business unionism” of its craft union rivals that became the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The Knights welcomed unskilled workers, of any race … Continue reading
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Citizen Police Review Boards As Summer Ends: East 1, West 0
When Laurel Prussing ran for Mayor of Urbana in 2005, she promised to support an independent board to oversee the police, as did most City Council candidates. When the new Mayor and City Counci ltook office, they first provided for … Continue reading
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Major Agreement Signed With Tomato Pickers!
Just four days ahead of a formal nationwide boycott by tomato pickers and their allies, on April 9, 2007, fastfood giant McDonald’s Corporation signed a historic agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the grassroots labor association of mostly immigrant … Continue reading
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Need a Reason to Vote? War and Impeachment
Urbana-Champaign may be “Impeach Bush Central”- and one of the very few places in the country where voters can have their say directly on both impeachment and war. Local voters will see a referendum on each of these questions on … Continue reading
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Who is Policing the Police?
“It’s the fox in charge of the henhouse,” noted one Urbana resident at a recent City Council meeting. He was expressing in the negative the most elementary principle of justice: you just can’t investigate yourself. The rule applies to government … Continue reading
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Can We Vote? Barriers to Full Participation Remain Rampant
Carol Ammons says the Champaign County Clerk’s office has rejected hundreds of voter registrations collected during a drive by her group, C-U Citizens for Peace and Justice, and the reasons for rejection seem hard to swallow. One local man allegedly … Continue reading
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News and Views from the UK
“It must be a very interesting time in the States at the moment,” remarked our server at dinner, “with November coming up.”My wife Catharine and I were enjoying a rare night out without children in her hometown of Wivenhoe, population … Continue reading
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U of I Board of Trustees: Who Are They?
has once again postponed their decision on “honorably retiring” the controversial Chief Illiniwek mascot, scheduled for their March 11th meeting. Trustee Frances Carroll, the recent Blagojevich appointee who had proposed the mascot’s removal, … Continue reading
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New Freedom Riders Rally Supporters in Urbana and 100 Other Cities
, a crowd of nearly 200 gathered in front of the Champaign County Courthouse in Urbana to welcome 45 bus riders from Chicago. The bus was part of “La Caravana de la Libertad para los … Continue reading
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Strike yields travel advisories at downtown Chicago hotel
’ any time soon, you may run across warnings about too-good-to-be-true rates at one hotel on Michigan Avenue overlooking Grant Park. Accommodations at the 580-room hotel are renting at winter prices – $99 a … Continue reading
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George Bush’s Father Trained the Man Who Killed My Father: An Interview with Jeremy Glick of September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
Jeremy Glick, whose father was killed in the World Trade Center, has traveled around the U.S. speaking about peace as it relates to 9/11 and Iraq on behalf of “September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows,” a group of family members … Continue reading
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