The City of Chicago Deputy Mayor of Labor, Bridget Early, today, via email, threatened to fire all of the members of Local 1001.
I have been fed up with the City continually treating our members and our Business Agents like second class citizens. It has gotten to the point that I once again told the City that we are done playing games and if they don’t want to honor the contract that we negotiated in good faith, then we should just cancel it. They continually want to move the goal posts on everything and then ask us to sign a new agreement to basically receive what is due to our members in the first place. I out and out told them, stop asking us to agree to anything and that the only thing this Local will be signing is the cancellation of the CBA. Ms. Early’s email back to me stated “… I want to make sure you are aware that you would be the one responsible for stopping pay raises for all your members and COVID pay in the new year. … you seem very eager to fire your own members from the city.” My response to this was in part “…Wow so the City is threatening to fire our members if and when we go out of contract, hmm, interesting. Ready when you are …” Naturally they did not respond.
I was not sure that we were dealing with a Union busting administration but I sure am now!
Mayor Johnson you are a disgrace to the union movement. I don’t respond well to threats and especially when those threats are directed at my members. I have never backed down from a fight and I am not going to now.
We are Stronger Together, We’re Union, and We Ain’t Going Nowhere!
Bob Chianelli