Category: Cook County Employees

Americans’ approval of labor unions is at the highest point it’s been in decades—68%—a recent Gallup poll found.

More than 300 employees of the Art Institute of Chicago are forming a union, the Art Institute of Chicago Workers United (AICWU), with AFSCME. The announcement came Aug. 3 in a public letter signed by 60 employees.

Last week AFSCME members got a big boost in their “mailboxes”—the largest-ever tax cut for working families in American history is the newly expanded child tax credit, part of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan.

After months of bargaining, 4,000 Cook County employees secured a new union contract with significant pay increases.

We did it! On June 23, the AFSCME bargaining committee reached a tentative agreement on a new union contract for some 4,000 members in Cook County government.

The majority of candidates endorsed by the AFSCME PEOPLE program won their races in the primary and general consolidated local elections, including two AFSCME members.

Illinois voters across the state selected representatives for city councils, mayors, school boards, park boards and other local elected officials during the Illinois Consolidated Election on Apr. 6.

In a win for the labor movement, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act on March 9. The PRO Act reforms labor laws to give power back to workers so they can freely organize unions.

Get answers to your questions about the COVID-19 vaccines. Watch this Feb. 4, 2021, virtual forum and Q&A with AFSCME staff and union members.

Early drafts of criminal justice reform legislation threatened employee bargaining rights and legal protections, but member phone calls and staff lobbying efforts blocked the most harmful provisions.