Fight for $15! Because we can’t survive on $8.25
Filed under: Society and Economy, Unions
It was a cold clear Saturday morning on December 22, 2012 when I got off the CTA Green Line and walked toward the St. James Cathedral to join with members of the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago (WOCC). WOCC was planning march and sit-in to demand a living wage of $15 an hour for Chicago’s downtown retail and restaurant workers. The Illinois minimum wage is now $8.25, far below what is needed to support families or even individuals. WOCC hopes to talk directly with the downtown business community.
The Hawk, Chicago’s legendary icy wind off the Lake, was not present as I crossed the Michigan Ave bridge on the way to the Cathedral. The Hawk can easily cut through the North Face jackets favored by many Chicagoans and makes carrying a large protest banner as tricky as sailing a schooner around Cape Horn. And leafletting to passersby when The Hawk comes down? You can lose dozens of fliers in an instant if you relax your grip and then have to chase a passel of airborne leaflets through crowds of shoppers and tourists.
The weather was with us that day.
WOCC was a new union in town, barely a month old, but had already pulled off two successful public actions including banner drops at Macy’s department store and marches through Chicago’s upscale Magnificent Mile (aka MagMile) shopping district.
The 2nd Amendment and the Enforcement of Tyranny
Filed under: Militarism, Race and gender, Society and Economy
What is not often talked about in regards to the 2nd Amendment and its “well regulated militia” is that one of its original purposes was to enforce tyranny. In order to maintain the vast slave empire, the slave states organized “slave patrols”, creating what amounted to a vast totalitarian police state over much of the young Republic. Slaves of course were not among those people who had the right “to keep and bear arms.”
The slave patrols were among the “well regulated militias” of our early history and contributed to the militarism of that region, a militarism necessary to put down slave rebellions.
Is the Mob cleaning up at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport?
Filed under: Society and Economy, Unions, US politics
Mayor Emanuel’s latest O’Hare Airport janitorial contract seems to be coming with pinkie rings and tailored silk suits attached. Yes, City Hall is reaching out to the Outfit again, renewing a Mob friendship that dates back at least to Mayor Big Bill Thompson of the Prohibition Era. Thompson’s heart went all aflutter when he heard the name Al Capone. The Outfit is a local Chicago name for what most Americans call the Mob or the Syndicate.
City Hall’s courtship with the Mob blossomed publicly under Mayor Richard J. Daley who, as Chicagoland old timers will recall, was pals with such Mob luminaries as Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, John D’Arco, Fred Roti and Jake Arvey. After all, the Outfit is really just another business seeking political favors and doling out campaign contributions.
Today’s City Hall-Mob relationship at O’Hare Airport is shown in the graphic below. Vendors at O’Hare get their contracts through City Hall:
