Local Interest

"All That Harms Labor Is Treason To America" --- Abraham Lincoln

Despite the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, this year's Labor Day March was a spirited affair. Members of the Iron Workers union, the Illinois Education Assocation, IBEW, Campus Faculty Association, and the Graduate Employees Organization joined other local unions for a march through Urbana.

Unemployment in Champaign County is the highest it's been in decades at 9.8%. Yet among many local unions morale is high as there have been successful strikes both with the GEO in November 2009 and more recently in Mahomet where the local chapter of the IEA won a strike.

The Labor Day Parade will conclude with a picnic in Prarie Park at Washington and Lierman in Urbana.

Champaign Mayor Jerry Schweighart, who is running for re-election this year, was also in the Labor Day Parade.

I asked the Mayor if he had seen the President's birth certificate and he said, "Not yet."

Asked if he'd be willing to show his own birth certificate, he said, "Sure, anytime."

Accompanying the Mayor was city council member Karen Foster.

BD

Friday, September 3
Twin Cities Indymedia

Minneapolis, Minn.--"I wanted to join the Jimmy Union because I made better wages when I was 16," said one worker at the picket line outside the Block E Jimmy John's Thursday evening.  "I worked at a turkey farm in the middle of nowhere, Minnesota.  And I made better wages then."

Wearing shirts that read "Wages So Low You'll Freak"--a play on the profitable fast food chain's slogan--a couple dozen members of the newly formed Jimmy John's Workers Union organized through the Twin Cities Industrial Workers of the World walked the line with supporters in downtown Minneapolis, hours after simultaneously coming out at nine Minneapolis area stores owned by Mike and Rob Mulligan of Miklin Enterprises.

Before the picket began, members of the new union went in the store to seek a meeting with management. A worker knocked on the boss' door: "Hello, Jimmy John's Workers Union."  But there was no answer, and outside a fold-up "neogtiating table" sat empty until the picketers went home for the night.

Jimmy Johns Labor Dispute Bursts onto National Stage with Coast-to-Coast Actions Planned for Labor Day

Fast Food Union Campaign Escalates as Management Refuses to Meet with Workers

MINNEAPOLIS- Faced with the refusal of Jimmy Johns franchise owners Mike and Rob Mulligan to meet with their employees to discuss demands for improvements to working conditions, the IWW Jimmy Johns Workers Union announced today that it will coordinate a nation-wide Week of Action beginning on Labor Day at Jimmy Johns locations across the United States to pressure the Mulligans to come to the table.

“If Mike and Rob won't just sit down and meet with us, we feel we have no other choice but to put pressure on them to listen. We are going to show Jimmy John's corporate that if they don't ensure that their franchise owners are respecting their employees, there will be consequences at the national level,” said Emily Przybylsky, a union member in Minneapolis.