Feb 25 2008
IL. Big Labor Report
Bureaucrats leading modern Labor movement
Recent highlights from a union article by Bethany Jaeger in February’s copy of Illinois Issues:
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• Nationwide, workers in the public sector had nearly five times the union membership relative to the private sector in 2006.
• While national union rates have dropped from 20% of the labor force in 1983 to 12% in 2006, Illinois union laborers were at 17% in 2006.
• Last year unions succeeded in urging the legislature to raise the state minimum wage to $7.50 an hour. Furthermore, this wage will increase by 25 cents a year to $8.25 in 2010.
• Labor union groups donated a combined $2.2 million 2005-2006. They’re also one of the top five political campaign donors since 1993, donating a collective $5.6 million, nearly all of it to Democratic candidates.
• 90% of AFSCME political campaign contributions from 1993 to 2006 went to Democrats according to studies from the University of Illinois in Springfield.
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Doug Whitley, president of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, comments union influence will dominate “as long as the unions have a stranglehold on Democratic politics and that there is this symbiotic relationship between elected office and public employee unions.”
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So what’s next? Edward Smith, Laborers’ International Union of North America vice president and Midwest regional manager, adds, “Our No. 1 priority is a capital bill because without a capital bill, there’s no jobs. And without jobs, there’s no health insurance. Without jobs, there’s no pension. Without jobs, there’s no money to put food on the table, send your kids to college, school.”
This is where Gov. Blagojevich’s new “Illinois Works” capital program comes in.
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