Posts tagged AFSCME Council 31
Museum of Science and Industry workers’ union votes to authorize strike
September 24, 2025 // The museum employees have been in contract negotiations for more than two years. Workers say 90% of eligible employees voted to strike, if necessary.
Over 1 in 3 Illinois government workers reject AFSCME Council 31 membership
April 24, 2025 // The union claims to represent more than 90,000 state and local government employees in Illinois. Yet not even 60,000 of those workers are members of the union, according to the union’s annual LM-2 report to the federal government. That means more than 1 in 3 workers have rejected membership in the union that is supposedly representing their interests. It could be because just 21 cents of every dollar the union spends is on representing workers – what should be its core priority. It could be the millions of dollars AFSCME Council 31 spends on politics, or the exorbitant six-figure salaries it pays its bosses. And it could be the union’s questionable spending on restaurants and hotels.
Chicago History Museum workers want to join an arts industry unionization wave
February 17, 2025 // Hannah Johnson, who works in member relations at the museum, is on the organizing committee. She said she and others at the Chicago History Museum have been inspired by cultural workers who have recently unionized, both locally and nationally. “We felt that now was a really good time to really seek out that sense of stability and security regarding our jobs, our wages and our benefits, and also request higher degrees of transparency from management,”
ILLINOIS STILL HASN’T FINALIZED CONTRACT WITH STATE WORKERS
December 18, 2023 // The contract negotiated between the state and AFSCME Council 31 was ratified by members in July. But the final contract has yet to be released, meaning taxpayers don’t yet know how much it will cost them. Little-known government union fact: When government workers ratify a union contract, they don’t necessarily see the exact contract. That’s what happened earlier this year when Illinois state workers ratified a contract between the state and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, the union representing them. The language of the contract itself wasn’t final, but the state and union had agreed to the terms.
Illinois House Speaker pushes bill to allow the statehouse to unionize
September 28, 2023 // What they want: The Illinois workers say union representation would protect them when they want to speak up and allow them to bargain for better wages. With Welch behind the legislation, passage is all but assured in the Democratic-controlled House. Pritzker, who a few months backed the contract for AFSCME Council 31 state employees, has signaled he supports the legislative employees’ union efforts. That’s a far cry from California, which took five tries before it was able to pass legislation earlier this month to allow staffers to unionize.
Art Institute, School of the Art Institute Workers Ratify Union Contract in a First for a Chicago Cultural Institution
August 17, 2023 // Under the terms of the deal, employees throughout the unit will see pay rise between 12.25% and 16.25%, with a new minimum hourly rate of $18 taking effect in 2025. The four-year contract also keeps health insurance premiums status quo in the coming fiscal year, and creates a labor-management committee aimed at resolving workplace issues and maintaining open lines of communication. In June, workers at the Museum of Science and Industry voted in favor of unionization, according to results from organizers. Museum management has argued some staffers who voted were ineligible to do so, and the National Labor Relations Board has yet to formally certify the results. This past March, Field Museum employees also voted to organize and are preparing to begin the bargaining process. Additionally, employees at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and the Newberry Library have voted to unionize. Workers at both organizations are currently negotiating their first contracts.
OPINION: Pritzker risks bankrupting Illinois to curry favor with Big Labor
August 14, 2023 // Members of AFSCME Council 31 eagerly voted in local union meetings over the past two weeks to ratify the contract, which negotiators had tentatively agreed to on July 1. And who could blame them? The contract also includes a $1,200 “stipend” paid to every worker merely for ratifying the contract. Pritzker, a Democrat, included these bonuses in his last contract negotiation in 2019, ostensibly to compensate workers for the financial “hardship” of being state employees under his Republican predecessor, Bruce Rauner. Predictably, such payoffs have now become standard operating procedure. The governor celebrated his and AFSCME’s windfall by tweeting out, “Illinois is a pro-worker state through and through.” The pronouncement was eerily reminiscent of Biden’s one-time campaign promise to become the “most pro-union president you ever saw.”
Five years ago, U.S. Supreme Court strikes down forced public union dues
July 5, 2023 // Following the Supreme Court ruling, Janus left his job with the state of Illinois to join the Illinois Policy Institute, a free market think tank. The ruling affected union participation around the country. According to the Freedom Foundation, over a quarter of a million workers have left the four largest public unions since the Janus decision, which is a decline of about 10 percent. After the ruling, AFSCME Council 31, the union Janus sued, saw nearly a 20% drop in membership.
Workers at Museum of Science and Industry vote to unionize
June 19, 2023 // According to its website, the museum sees nearly 1.5 million guests each year, approximately 40% of which visit for free. Employees at the museum first announced plans to unionize in April 2023. More than 50 workers signed an open letter, in which they called for pay increases, professional development and improved health and safety protocols. In March 2023, employees at the Field Museum approved a union contract while those at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum filed for an election.
Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum employees vote to unionize
May 30, 2023 // The vote was 31-4 in favor of unionizing in an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board, AFSCME said. Ballots were mailed in recent weeks and counted Thursday. Two ballots were not counted because of management challenges. The employees will join AFSCME’s Council 31. The bargaining unit will cover 45 workers at the museum’s Lincoln Park location and at a collections facility in Ravenswood. The unit will include full- and part-time employees, according to its filing with the labor board.