Protests at Walmart in Urbana and McDonald’s in Champaign
On this year’s Black Friday, November 29, 2013, local activists held a rally at the Walmart in Urbana that was organized by Central Illinois Jobs With Justice. They stood out in 30 degree weather...
View ArticleHidden Costs of Drought and Floods
Gregory McIsaac Climate models indicate that Midwestern US will likely experience warmer and more volatile weather in the future, with more intense rainfall and more frequent and severe droughts....
View ArticleOne of The Core Union Values is Solidarity!
Recently the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO), the union for graduate student teaching assistants and research assistants at the University of Illinois, made a few changes to the union’s...
View ArticleWhy Tenured Professors Need Unions
I once got stuck in an airplane sitting next to an off-duty pilot. As we sat on the runway for an hour, only to find that we had to change flight crews and pilots because of the long delay, a …...
View ArticleA Faculty Union at UIUC Part 1
The UI Chicago faculty union signed its first contract in April 2014. In Urbana the Campus Faculty Association (CFA) submitted in mid-May the necessary number of cards to create a full-time non-tenure...
View ArticleUS Labor Against the War
The level of violence in Iraq is rapidly escalating and the country is falling apart. There are calls for sending back US troops. Syria’s catastrophic civil war is being fueled by arms shipments from...
View ArticlePrivatization Comes to the Postal Service, Protest Comes to Champaign-Urbana
For the past few years you may have seen headlines about threats to close post offices and reductions in postal service and delivery hours. Now, the Post Office faces another threat—privatization. Over...
View ArticleA Faculty Union at UIUC: the State of Play
Since the first part of this article appeared in the last Public i, UIUC non-tenure track faculty have conducted a six-week card drive, turned in the requisite number of cards mid-May, and after...
View Article“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...
View Article“I’m Not Anti-Union”: Governor ALEC and the Hostile Takeover of Illinois...
(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...
View ArticleThe Struggle for Tuition-Free Education
By Mary Grace Hebert A breathtaking piece by Black Students for Revolution in the January 2016 Public i called for tuition to be eliminated because it perpetuates an unjust system. Presidential...
View ArticleUIUC is Balancing a False Budget “Crisis” on the Backs of Students and Faculty
Illinois has not yet passed a state budget for higher education, and schools like Chicago State have been left in the lurch. According to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago State will not be able to pay...
View ArticleMay Day Rally on Quad
“This is what solidarity looks like.” May Day rally on the U of I Quad.
View ArticleThe Reality of the Worker: May Day Speech
by Gus Wood May Day speech inspired by the activism and speech/words of the legendary Lucy Parsons Brothers and sisters, the objective is clear today: We need workers to unite. Workers! Unite! Brothers...
View ArticleNTFC Local #6546: Work Actions Lead to a Settled Contract
For the last nineteen months, NTFC Local #6546, the union that represents about 500 non-tenure-track faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, fought for our first contract. When we...
View ArticleIn Memory, Honor, and Love of Gene Vanderport
It is difficult to write about an untimely death of someone whom one has known for almost half a century. Gene was my student, my comrade, and my friend since the late 1960s. Only a couple of years...
View ArticleNews-Gazette: Always Right
The News-Gazette has always been Right — right-wing Republican, and in its smug self-righteousness, right. The paper presents itself as “respectable Republican,” as representing the values of “proper,”...
View ArticleDemands for a Transformed University
On September 9, 2016, a “Rally for a Transformed University” was held at the alma mater on UIUC campus. It corresponded with the release of a list of demands. Led by Black Students For Revolution, the...
View Article“Labor Hour” Now on WRFU, the Radio Station of the UCIMC
After 21 years at radio station WEFT, the World Labor Hour radio program has moved its weekly 2-hour program to radio station WRFU (104.5 FM/wrfu.net) in the IMC/downtown Urbana Post Office building....
View ArticleHistory Matters: A Look Back at the Champaign County Labor Movement of the 1920s
For the past two years, newspaper headlines across Illinois have carried grim reports of budget impasse and inadequate funding for core state services and institutions, including for our flagship...
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