Show Your Union Pride and Solidarity.

We Have received  our new Union Member T-Shirts.

They are now available for purchase at the Union Hall for $20.

They Come in all sizes, long and short sleeve.

AGENDA:

• Vote on MOI to change Bylaws to add a Unit VP and a 2nd Bylaws change preventing candidacy for multiple full or part-time paid positions.
• Nominations for open Guide and one (1) Sergeant-At-Arms (Guard) offices will be accepted from the floor.  The Election Committee will also be selected at this meeting.
• Updates on grievances, contract negotiations, arbitrations, and other important issues.
• Executive Board will meet at 1:15 p.m.  
•  Updates on AEWC delegates.

A hopeful representation that Illinois residents have reached a mutual understanding for long-delayed investments in our state was evident yesterday. A bipartisan Illinois Senate Transportation and Appropriations Committees meeting at the SIU Edwardsville campus, the first of four public meetings across the state, discussing funding and projects for a capital bill.

Rather than taking the opportunity to improve critical conditions in our state by refusing to relinquish the understandable negative opinions and emotions that have grown to a level of a complete stalemate over the past four years, now is the time to move the state forward with discussions and responsible funding to reposition Illinois in a positive direction. The one thing we can count on by continuing the widely held, entrenched belief that Illinois lawmakers can’t get anything right is a further deterioration of all economic drivers.

Senator Rachelle Crowe-Glen Carbon thanked the senators for traveling to begin these discussions.
Crowe said, “We have met with our local mayors, education institutions and labor about the possibility of a capital bill and each of those conversations ended with the concern that Southern Illinois is not forgotten. So I give my sincere thanks for those who have travelled here today as evidence to all of us Southern Illinois has not been forgotten.”

Forging coalitions among sectors that reflect residents/taxpayers shouldn’t become filled with conflicting obstacles when polls and studies have proven there is shared support, nationwide and in Illinois, for large scale investments in infrastructure. “There’s a universal understanding that infrastructure is crumbling across the state — our roads and bridges, our water infrastructure. We need to invest in it,” Illinois Governor Pritzker said in an interview prior to being sworn-in. “We’re the supply chain hub of America and in order to maintain that status, in order to create jobs, we have to continue to invest in our infrastructure.”

Illinois last passed a capital spending bill over four years ago. Former Governor Rauner chose to block any progress, holding all school districts, higher education and infrastructure projects as hostage to satisfy his agenda of destroying organized labor.

Having a capital bill may help in bringing federal dollars back to Illinois, said U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois. “There have been federal dollars available to be spent for Illinois, but could not be because Illinois did not have a budget, and did not come up with our 30 percent of the match, so we lost out on 70 percent of the funding the federal government was...

SOME RETIREES ARE RECEIVING THIS LETTER IN THE MAIL. WE URGE YOU TO IGNORE IT. IT IS A SCAM.