Progress Illinois

Progress Illinois editor Josh Kalven was in Austin, TX for the third annual Netroots Nation -- a convention of progressive bloggers, activists, and politicians held in mid-July. Keynote speakers included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, Lawrence Lessig, Van Jones -- and by surprise, former Vice President Al Gore. Following are some video highlights.

Josh interviews 10th District congressional candidate Dan Seals:

Josh interviews 13th District congresional candidate Scott Harper:

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In the spring of 2006, well before he launched his presidential campaign, Sen. Barack Obama delivered a keynote address on climate change at the Associated Press' Annual Luncheon in Chicago. Among a myriad of potential remedies for America’s dependence on fossil fuels, the Illinois senator made sure to highlight the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), a local institution that had only been in operation for three years. “To deal directly with climate change, something we failed to do in the last energy bill, we should use a market-based strategy that gradually reduces harmful emissions in the most economical way,” he said. “Right here in Chicago, the Chicago Climate Exchange is already running a legally binding greenhouse gas trading system.”

The name check was gratifying for leaders of the burgeoning CCX, many of whom had spent the market’s early days trying to establish its legitimacy in both environmental and financial circles. Although balancing the demands of both greens and venture capitalists is tricky -- and the exchange has generated plenty of criticism from the two camps -- the CCX has undergone serious growth in five short years and has solidified its role as the nation’s premiere carbon trading market. Now, with politicians and environmentalists clamoring for increased carbon regulation, it’s well situated to become a crucial player on the national stage.

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Last fall, Austin Polytechnical Academy opened its doors to its inaugural class of 125 students and embarked on a fascinating experiment. Housed in a school building once known for violence and high dropout rates, the Academy aimed not only to re-imagine public education and revitalize Chicago’s poverty-stricken Austin neighborhood, it also hope to save the city’s stagnant industrial sector by training a new generation of skilled laborers. The school had a lot to live up to.

For Dan Swinney, longtime labor organizer and champion of the project, it was all part of “exploiting the anarchy that exists in our society.” Swinney pushed the Academy as an answer to the crisis of education in Chicago’s schools, the crisis of poverty in Chicago’s streets, and the crisis of outsourcing in Chicago’s factories. In his role as executive director of the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council, he formed a coalition of educators, factory owners, and labor unions. With added support from Chicago’s Renaissance 2010 program, a city initiative to open innovative new schools, Austin Polytechnical became a reality.

Swinney described the mission of the school to me recently by recounting a trip he made to a Chicago-based factory, PK Tools. During his visit, Swinney -- himself a former steelworker -- discovered that the owner was looking to hire a mold designer to do complicated manufacturing work. The position had been vacated months earlier, but had received no qualified applicants. It paid fifty dollars an hour.

“Fifty bucks an hour plus benefits,” Swinney emphasized during an interview in his office. “That’s not even talking overtime. I mean [at the factory] you start out making six figures, and twenty blocks away you have people who have a totally failed school system, in this failed community, literally dying.”

Getting a student from a high-risk background trained and into that high-paying job is, in a nut shell, the mission of Austin Polytechnical. From there, Swinney contends, all other things will follow.

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Before there was the Hyatt or the Ritz-Carlton, there was the Congress Hotel. Erected within spitting distance of Chicago’s Grant Park on the eve of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, the Congress prided itself on providing a luxurious resting spot for the world’s well-to-do. Its opulent banquet hall was the first American hotel ballroom to use air-conditioning. Its chic nightclub featured a revolving bandstand of the nation’s finest musicians, including bandleader Benny Goodman, who recorded his radio show on location in 1935 and 1936. It was even dubbed the “Home of Presidents,” playing host to eight commanders-in-chief (Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, and Roosevelt) and serving as the Democratic Party’s headquarters throughout the 1932 election cycle.

Over a century after it opened, the Congress is still drawing the attention of presidential hopefuls. Last July, Barack Obama took some time off to visit the hotel. While in Chicago for the Yearly Kos political convention a few weeks later, John Edwards swung by the Michigan Avenue landmark as well. Unfortunately for the proprietors of the Congress, neither candidate stepped foot in the building, choosing instead to march outside with hotel employees picketing for a just wage.

This Thursday marks the fifth anniversary of the Congress Hotel strike, a struggle waged by members of UNITE-HERE Local 1 that has become a symbol of city-wide efforts to lift low-wage service workers out of poverty. While Congress strikers have garnered national notoriety because of their determination, the employees haven’t reaped the same material rewards as their colleagues across the city. And unless negotiations between the union and hotel management accelerate, the strike could last for years to come.

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