Category: Legislative

AFSCME never quit battling for justice since ousted governor Bruce Rauner illegally froze employee step increases on July 1, 2015. Finally, state of Illinois employees are back in step and will get their back wages by the end of this September.

In an extraordinarily challenging time, AFSCME members succeeded in sharing their story and fighting for continued progress for the adults and youth they serve every day.

Voters will have the chance to replace the state's unfair, inadequate tax structure with one that raises revenue by taxing the rich.

More than 500 delegates from AFSCME local unions across the state braved single digit temperatures, wind and snow to gather in Springfield for the biennial AFSCME Legislative Conference to set the union’s 2019 legislative agenda.

The Chicago City Council voted to create a task force to study mental health services available and make recommendations to improve the city’s public mental health safety net. CDPH employees, members of AFSCME Local 505, played a key role in this fight.

Bruce Rauner is out the door. That’s good news for the countless Illinois citizens who were grievously harmed by his vengeance politics, especially the thousands of state employees who were the prime targets of his animus.

In favor of billionaire CEOs and corporate interests in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that fair-share fees in the public sector violate the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Bruce Rauner visited a campus of Western Illinois University—where hundreds of AFSCME Local 417 members work—on June 14. He failed to mention the damage he did to the WIU over the last three years.

For the first time since taking office, Gov. Rauner signed a full budget, on time, on June 4 after the General Assembly adopted it with strong bipartisan support on May 31.

After enactment of state budget, Council 31 Executive Director Roberta Lynch sent a letter to Gov. Rauner calling on him “to immediately direct your agencies to prepare vouchers for the full amount of back wages owed to employees both active and retired.”