“I moved here about seven and a half years ago and got a job at the health department. I had never been in a union before. They said ‘OK, well now that you work here, you have to be in the union.’ “The first union meeting I went to I was voted in as president....
State workers don’t really know much about how AFSCME spent $7.7 million on politics. That’s because records don’t detail and the union’s Illinois chapter obscures how most of the money was used.
Federal financial filings from Illinois’ largest government union show only 20 percent of its spending goes toward representing its members.
Of the more than 3,700 Illinois state workers who stopped sending part of every paycheck to a union, 2,800 stopped sending their money to AFSCME.
Six years after last threatening to strike, the teachers union walked the picket line – a collective bargaining tactic not allowed in any of Illinois’ neighboring states.
State records show AFSCME has funneled at least $1.4 million to Michael Madigan and Madigan-controlled committees in the past five years – including at least $823,200 just this year.
AFSCME Council 31, its PAC and AFSCME headquarters are major political players, funneling millions of dollars every year to Democrats or self-proclaimed progressive organizations.
AFSCME – the largest government worker union in the state – may pull off one of the most insulting waiting games in state history. The payoff? More than $3 billion, courtesy of Illinois taxpayers.
State records show AFSCME Council 31 funnels membership dues into its political action committee, which just gave a record-breaking $767,800 donation to Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan.
The state of New Mexico has taken steps to comply with the Janus v. AFSCME decision by stopping all union dues and fees until members sign new authorizations. Illinois should follow suit.
At least 300 Chicago Public Schools employees have stopped paying fees to the Chicago Teachers Union after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled they could not be forced to pay the union just to keep their jobs.
One school district in New Jersey has stopped deducting union dues and fees until it has new authorizations from employees to do so – a step in line with what the U.S. Supreme Court demanded of state and local government employers and government unions in Janus v. AFSCME. Illinois governments should follow suit.
Without right-to-work protections currently offered in 27 states, you pay the union or lose your job. It’s very simple.
At least 730 Cook County and 646 Chicago employees have been freed from paying forced union fees following the Janus v. AFSCME decision.