One hardly needs to argue for economic reinvigoration in Chicago. The Second City has long wrestled with rust belt-style aspersions that would cast doubt on its self-proclaimed status as a “world class city.” A new plan aims to help reinvigorate Chicago after a "lost decade" of economic stagnation. more ›

The Jane Addams Hull House Association, which announced last week they would be closing in spring and declaring for bankruptcy, instead has employees scrambling to place clients with appropriate organizations after they said that Friday would be their last day of operations. more ›

A monthly meeting in their Bronzeville union hall had the spirit of a rally, as letter carriers decried $3 billion in cuts announced earlier this week that would close Chicago mail facilities and result in 28,000 layoffs nationwide. more ›

A federal grand jury subpoenaed each of the Chicago municipal employees and laborers pension funds in October to discern how these officials became eligible for bloated city pensions. more ›

This morning the new Trader Joe's opens. Chicago Fair Food is protesting its opening. more ›

Quinn defended his decision Tuesday to go back on a deal struck with union representatives last year that would have protected state workers from layoffs during the current budget crisis. more ›

We sometimes wonder how Franklin Delano Roosevelt would have handled the likes of John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Jim DeMint and the Tea Party. We suspect we would have had a rough row to hoe. more ›

In These Times will host a reception tonight for the opening of their exhibit “WI: Rise Up.” The exhibit features posters, photographs and other ephemera produced for and during the labor rallies in Wisconsin. more ›

74 years ago today, police opened fire on a group of striking steelworkers and their families on the Southeast side. Ten were killed in the "Memorial Day massacre of 1937." more ›

The NFL players have won the latest round in the league's labor saga, when U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson ordered an end to the 7-week-old lockout, "saying she believed the players' argument that the situation was causing irreparable harm to their careers." This would force NFL teams to open their facilities to players and league business would continue while the sides try to hammer out a new labor agreement, and in fact some players have shown up at their team's facilities this morning. more ›

The recently leaked letter from Caterpillar Chairman and CEO Doug Oberhelman to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has been making the rounds around the state, lending itself to a lot of bloviating and freaking out by those who are generally nervous about the future jobs outlook in Illinois. If you're not up to speed on this drama, Oberhelman sent Quinn a letter last week, which was leaked to the press, telling the Illinois governor that he's been courted by other states, to move the company's headquarters out of it's East Peoria home. In spite of the outcry by local politicians (like Peoria's congressman, Aaron Schock), Oberhelman has been pretty upfront with Quinn that he's not threatening to move the company out of state, so much as he's offering to work with Quinn as an ambassador from the business community to find ways to solve the state's fiscal problems while maintaining Illinois's competitive edge among manufacturers. more ›

Last month, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was crowing about the businesses that would come to his state from Illinois as a result of our state income tax hike. Now, his assaults on organized labor have made his state a prime battleground for the 2012 elections after the Wisconsin Assembly ceased debate and then approved legislation stripping labor unions of their collective bargaining rights. Assembly Democrats, many of them groggy from three days of intense debate over the legislation, didn't know what hit them. more ›

While the nation's eyes are fixed on the protesters in Madison, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker pleads his case to the morning network news shows, it occurs to us that the legislators on the downlow might need some help when it comes to killing time as they hide out in our fair state. more ›

If Mayor Daley thinks you said something wrong, you probably did. May Day took some time yesterday to rebuke a comment made earlier in the week by Jim Sweeney, a union leader with Operating Engineers Local 150. Sweeney called Rahm Emanuel a "Wall Street Judas" who collected "bags of silver" while helping pass NAFTA through Congress. Daley said Sweeney's comment was anti-Semitic (Emanuel is Jewish) and that the tone of the campaign should not be lowered. more ›

On the heels of the Chicago Firefighters Union's endorsement of Gery Chico yesterday, the Teamsters stepped out on their ledge and endorsed Rahm Emanuel for Mayor today. more ›

The State Legislature is currently debating a bill called Performance Counts which, if passed into law, would link teacher tenure to student test scores, make it easier to fire ineffective teachers and restrict teachers' right to strike. more ›

The Chicago Federation of Labor released its endorsements for the upcoming city elections, and it's more notable as much for who wasn't endorsed as who was. more ›

Teachers who work at the campuses of ASPIRA schools in Chicago have begun organizing a union, asking principals at their schools to recognize the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff (Chicago ACTS). More than two-thirds of the nearly 100 teachers at the four schools have signed union cards, significantly more than are required by law to form a union. “Our action sends a strong and clear message to ASPIRA that we believe forming our union will lead to greater collaboration and better results for our students,” said Alexa Sorock in a statement to the media. Sorock is a humanities teacher and department head at ASPIRA Early College High School and a Chicago ACTS member. “We expect ASPIRA will recognize our union so we can begin collective bargaining.” more ›

With the Olympics out of the way and Mayor Daley's imposed delay on a vote over the proposed second Wal-Mart store in Chicago, 21st Ward Alderman Howard Brookins has decided it's time to up the ante on bringing the global mega-retailer into his neighborhood. Setting a stuffed hound in front of 14th Ward Ald. and Chairman of the council's Finance Committee Ed Burke, Brookins vowed to "hound" Burke until the issue was brought to a vote. “Not after 40 years,” Burke said. “Woof, woof.” more ›

Wal-Mart certainly raised the stakes this week in its bid to open a second store in the city. But the results of the push-poll notwithstanding, setting up shop in Chatham may not be the slam dunk the Arkansas-based mega-retailer thinks it will be. That's because, as the city council was passing the buck on the Wal-Mart vote by sending it from the Rules Committee to the Finance Committee, committee chair Alderman Ed Burke (of the 14th Ward) told the Sun-Times that Wal-Mart would have to step up to the plate to play ball in Chicago. more ›

A federal arbitrator dealt what may be the final blow to United Steelworkers Local 7367. The steelworkers' union had argued that ArcelorMittal Steel USA had committed to keeping its Hennepin, IL plant open until 2012, as long as it was productive and profitable. The arbitrator ruled that ArcelorMittal could close the plant permanently. The union had been fighting to reopen the plant, or get ArcelorMittal to agree to sell it to someone who would. more ›

Frustrated by an increased workload, a lack of say in how their schools were run and a desire to have a bigger say in the quality of education available to students, a group of charter school teachers took the steps that would have made the schools the first unionized charter schools in the state early last month. 91 of the school's teachers signed union cards and turned them into the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board, (IELRB) which certified the teachers' union. Under state law, an "educational employer shall voluntarily recognize a labor organization for purposes of collective bargaining if the organization appears to represent a majority of employees in the unit." Which means that if a majority of educational employees (such as teachers) sign union cards, the school must recognize their union. more ›

Members of USW Locals 101, 1011 and 7367 held a rally in downtown Chicago Thursday afternoon at the Federal Plaza to demand that ArcelorMittal Steel either reopen their Hennepin, IL finishing plant or allow it to be sold to another company that will. Despite turning a profit of $48 million last year, the global steel giant has idled the Hennepin finishing mill, leaving 300 families downstate unemployed in a county with a 14.1 percent jobless rate. Governor Pat Quinn joined the rally as well, declaring that Illinois needs strong middle class jobs if the state is going to thrive in the economic recovery. more ›

Three Teamsters Local 743 members are currently on trial for rigging a union election in 2004 that they lost anyway. Federal prosecutors say that they changed members' addresses in a union database, mailing the ballots instead to family and friends. The ballots were then marked with votes for the Unity Slate led by Robert Walston. more ›

Unemployment rose again through the month of August, according to a new report released by the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. The national unemployment rate is 6.1 percent, a five-year high. [AP, BLS] more ›

An anti-sweatshop organization says the State of Illinois "does business with companies that are linked to sweatshops." That's in violation of an executive order. more ›

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In a surprising move, John McDonough resigned as Cubs president on Tuesday to become president for the Blackhawks. Isn't that like if Da Mere were to resign so that he could fill a vacancy on the water reclamation district board of trustees? McDonough had spent nearly 25 years with the Cubs organization, working his way up the marketing org chart before landing atop the front office when Andy MacPhail resigned following the 2006 season. McDonough's... more ›

When Mike Madigan and Mayor Daley declined Balgojevich's invitation to meet (again) yesterday to try to work out a deal to fund transit, Rick Harris, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, which represents rail workers on the CTA, told the press that "we are about at wits' end." Harris was reacting to the looming "Doomsday 3", as the RTA's labor unions are concerned that a plan to overhaul pension and health care... more ›

Steppenwolf’s Broadway offering went dark this weekend thanks to the Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employee strike, now in its third day. August: Osage County, a rousing critical favorite and the company’s best received show in a long time, was in its second preview week at the Imperial Theatre, drawing 800-900 patrons per night to the 1,400 seat house. more ›