Members of SEIU* Local 1 stood in solidarity with students and
parents Saturday at the second and final community meeting regarding the
phase out of Crispus Attucks Elementary School on the South Side and urged that their jobs be preserved.
“If
you close these schools down, you’re going to force us to go into
another environment we’re not used to being in,” said Chris Scales, a
custodian at the DuSable High School campus, who spoke on behalf of SEIU
Local 1 workers in the Chicago Public Schools system. “We’re used to
speaking to our students on a daily basis.”
Another SEIU Local 1 member Michele Clark, who works at Henry Clay Elementary, said schools are safe havens for children, and they shouldn’t close.
“I
feel that the city is not doing what they need to do for these kids,”
she said at the microphone with fellow union members by her side. “They
are saying that they’re for the schools ... but I see none of that.”
Read more »
In anticipation of next week’s economic bargaining, members of 
Members and leaders of three unions representing workers in the Chicago Public
Schools (CPS) system criticized the city’s recent round of school actions in a joint
report issued Tuesday, saying school closings hurt children,
struggling neighborhoods, and working families.
Carrying signs that read “Good Jobs, Safe Chicago” and chanting about
higher wages, security officers represented by the 
Citing a lack of economic opportunities as the driving force behind
the high rate of gun violence in Chicago over the last several
years, Illinois 2nd Congressional District candidate Robin
Kelly stood alongside union security officers Saturday to call on the
city’s downtown building owners to provide fairer compensation for their
emergency “first responders.”
Tonya Yarbrough, a security officer at the 