Natural gas is fueling a fight between consumer advocates, a powerful utility company and the state. Amid competing advertising campaigns, accusations of mismanagement and state decarbonization efforts, the Illinois Commerce Commission is starting a process that will shape how the state regulates the increasingly controversial industry.
Unions
More than 2,200 Chicago Park District workers, represented by the union SEIU Local 73, have been in contract negotiations for nine months, the union said.
The move comes seven months after the NLRB found merit or partial merit in the Howard Brown Health Works United’s allegations. This complaint reiterates those allegations, including declaring an impasse and refusing to bargain over layoffs.
National Nurses United represents 2,800 nurses at UChicago Medicine. A strike authorization vote is part of standard procedure, where represented nurses give the union the authority to call a strike.
Last week, eight local Teamsters unions representing about 3,800 transportation-related employees authorized strikes amid the ongoing negotiations. A strike can still be avoided despite the authorization votes.
The unions are calling Tuesday’s protests a national day of action. It is not a strike — federal law makes it difficult for airline unions to conduct legal strikes.
The eight local unions that authorized strikes are spread throughout Illinois and represent around 3,800 employees, including drivers, highway maintainers and bridge tenders. Negotiations between the state and the unions have lasted more than seven months.
It is the latest recent strike in the U.S. news industry. The striking workers are employees of Alden Global Capital, a New York hedge fund that has been buying up newspapers across the country and facing criticism for slashing budgets and cutting jobs.
Journalists at the Chicago Tribune are among more than 200 journalists, designers, and production workers at seven newsrooms across the country owned by Tribune Publishing who will be participating in the one-day walkout.
Report finds public university employees paid 21% less than state agency workers in similar jobs
At public universities across the state, staff and faculty unions have faced a contentious year of negotiations and, in some cases, strikes. Pay has been a major issue on several campuses and the unions are now looking to Springfield for potential reforms to the state’s higher education funding.
The Columbia College Faculty Union (CFAC), which represents nearly 600 part-time faculty members, announced Thursday its members had officially approved the contract, which put an end to a record-long 49-day strike.
College administrators and the Columbia College Faculty Union (CFAC) — which represents nearly 600 adjunct faculty members — jointly announced the tentative deal that would put an end to the record-long strike.
Tribune Publishing journalists plan to picket and rally Saturday outside Tribune Tower, accusing the hedge fund that owns the company of brutally undercutting local news in service of a relentless thirst for profits.
Following the Thanksgiving break, faculty members represented by the Columbia College Faculty Union (CFAC) have entered the fifth week of the ongoing strike.
A group of fed-up residents from a Rogers Park apartment building showed up at the property’s management company Wednesday to announce they’d formed a tenants association. It’s part of what organizers said is a resurgent tenants union movement.
Ford, General Motors and Stellantis agreements, which run through April 2028, will end contentious talks that began last summer and led to six-week-long strikes at all three automakers.
