QUOTE OF THE DAY
Chicago Tribune: Employers in Illinois warn of 900 layoffs
Illinois employers warned that they may lay off 900 workers in the coming months, according to notices filed with state regulators.
Aramark said it plans to lay off 265 employees in its St. Charles facility beginning in December because of the loss of a business contract. The company provides food service, uniforms and facilities management for businesses.
Sears Holdings, which also operates Kmart stores, said it planned to lay off a total of 180 workers as it closes 2 Kmart stores in Forest Park and Peoria. These stores were among a list of 55 Kmart, 30 Sears and 31 Sears Auto Center locations slated to close from September to mid-January according to a report last month.
WSJ: Teachers Unions Flunked Their Midterms
Teachers unions took a drubbing on Tuesday after spending more than $100 million to try to elect their allies and steamroll education reformers. Like good Democratic team members, now the unions are blaming President Obama for their sweeping losses while taking credit for their few slim, hard-fought wins.
“The Republicans successfully made it a referendum on the president,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said on Wednesday, by way of explaining the union’s thumping. “In the few places where you had issues like education and you had a good candidate who could get through the torrent of negative ads, we were able to win.”
Kudos to Ms. Weingarten for her optimism and ironic humor in the wake of defeat. Reformers like Republican Govs. Rick Snyder in Michigan, Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Nathan Deal in Georgia and Sam Brownback in Kansas did cut through a torrent of negative union ads and prevailed.
Reuters: Fight over public pensions to widen after Republican election gains
Union-backed defenders of public pensions and their opponents expect their battle to expand to more states next year in the fight over U.S. entitlements after Tuesday’s mid-term elections.
Despite defeat for a hotly contested ballot measure that sought to end traditional public pensions in Phoenix, a fight which drew millions of dollars in outside money, Republican gains in some state houses and governors’ mansions mean the battle over public pensions will likely intensify.
Defenders of public pensions say they will be particularly focused on Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where they expect moves to reform pensions will gain steam after Republican gains on Tuesday.
Fortune: How Chicago leads in luring businesses
Across the U.S., Fortune 500 companies are leaving their leafy office parks and moving back into cities. In Chicago, for instance, United Airlines UAL , Archer Daniels Midland ADM , Hillshire Brands HSH and General Electric’s GE Transportation unit are among the big businesses feeding an urban revival.
Is this a fad or a long-term trend?
This question was the focus of a “Future of Cities” panel that I moderated yesterday at an Economic Club of Chicago lunch. One of the panelists was my Fortune colleague Leigh Gallagher, who, besides co-chairing the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit and Fortune’s new MPW Next Gen Summit, wrote a very wise book called The End of the Suburbs. With us on stage were the McKinsey Global Institute’s Jaana Remes, who has studied global megacities, and Mitchell Krebs, the CEO of Coeur Mining CDE , which recently moved its headquarters from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to Chicago.
Chicago Tribune: Metra holds final round of hearings today on 11 percent fare hike
Metra will hold a final round of hearings Thursday on a proposal to raise fares by nearly 11 percent next year, part of a capital plan that could see fares increase by 68 percent over the next decade to modernize the agency’s aging fleet.
The increases would help pay for a $2.4 billion capital plan that Metra says is “critical to maintaining safe and reliable service” by rebuilding and replacing the commuter rail agency’s rail cars and locomotives, Metra said last month when it approved the proposal as part of the agency’s proposed 2015 budget.
The hearings Thursday will be held from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the following locations: Metra board room, 547 W. Jackson Blvd., Chicago; the Woodstock Village Hall; Joliet City Hall; and the Geneva City Hall. Metra held four hearings Wednesday evening.
ABC 7: Robo-calls allegedly made to election judges investigated
The Cook County state’s attorney is launching a criminal investigation of pre-election robo-calls that were allegedly made to Chicago election judges to undermine the process.
Tuesday’s voting problems not only include election judges failing to show up on Election Day, but also long lines for a new program that allows voters to register and vote on the same day. Chicago election officials say every election throws them a new curve ball, one they hope to learn from.
The counting continues in Chicago as the Board of Elections process absentee, provisional, same-day registration ballots and others. Election officials say there are lessons learned about some of Tuesday’s bumps in the road, including why so many judges failed to show up. Some may have been scared away by false robo-calls. The state’s attorney’s office is investigating and Mayor Rahm Emanuel is calling on a federal investigation as well.
Red Eye Chicago: CTA explosives testing draws mixed rider reviews
Nate Long was among dozens of random commuters detoured on their way into the CTA Red Line’s Grand stop Thursday morning: to have their bags checked for explosives.
Long, 24, was on his way to catch a train at the River North station just before 9 a.m. when a Chicago Police officer told him he had been randomly selected for a bag inspection – part of a counterterrorism initiative launched this week at some the CTA’s 140-plus rail stations.
He agreed to the testing and walked to a screening table – just outside the turnstiles leading to the trains – and plopped his shopping bags down.
Chicago Tribune: Risky bonds prove costly for Chicago Public Schools
Fresh from the world of high-stakes trading, David Vitale arrived at Chicago Public Schools a decade ago with a plan to transform the way it borrowed money.
With the district thirsty for cheap cash, plain old municipal bonds weren’t good enough anymore, and banks were standing by with attractive new options.
So Vitale, then chief administrative officer at CPS, and other officials pushed forward with an extraordinary gamble. From 2003 through 2007, the district issued $1 billion worth of auction-rate securities, nearly all of it paired with complex derivative contracts calledinterest-rate swaps, in a bid to lower borrowing costs.
CARTOON OF THE DAY
