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By Julie Wernau | Employment declined in 329 of the 334 largest U.S. counties over the one-year time period beginning in September 2008, according to preliminary data released Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Elkhart County, Ind., about 100 miles east of Chicago, saw the largest percentage decline, losing 14.5 percent over the year.
Nationally, jobs decreased 5.3 percent over that time period with an average weekly wage of $840 per week.
(AP Photo/The Day, Sean D. Elliot)
By Greg Burns
| For millions of Americans laid off in the devastating recession, the job
search just isn’t clicking.
And here’s the really bad news: Almost no one will be able to recover
the financial ground they’ve lost.
That’s the inescapable conclusion from years of academic research into
the last big recession of the early 1980s, and job shocks thereafter.
By Julie Johnsson |
United Airlines pilots and flight attendants celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by picketing the airline’s Chicago headquarters to protest a controversial joint venture with Ireland’s Aer Lingus.
United flight crews are particularly unhappy with new service between Washington Dulles International Airport and Madrid that United and Aer Lingus plan to launch later this month.
By Kathy Bergen | Chicago
trade show organizers are meeting directly with McCormick Place labor
leaders this afternoon in a private meeting at the McCormick Place
Hyatt.
The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the government agency that owns and operates McCormick Place and Navy Pier, initially said it had no information about the meeting. Later in the day, a spokeswoman said Juan Ochoa, the agency’s chief executive, was in fact aware of the session, as were other managers. The Chicago Convention and Tourism
Bureau, which books business into the convention hall, also said it had
no information.
Mary Pat Heftman, point person for the National Restaurant Association’s
annual show here, was asked about who organized the meeting as she
approached the meeting room.
Associated Press | The union representing mechanics and other ground workers at American Airlines is asking federal officials to let them take a big step closer toward a possible strike against the nation’s second-largest carrier.
The Transport Workers Union said Thursday they asked federal mediators to declare a deadlock in their negotiations over a new contract.
By Kiah Haslett |
Decatur and Peoria saw a spike in their unemployment rate in December
from the year-ago period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’
latest data released Wednesday.
Decatur, headquarters of Archer Daniels Midland Co., posted a 5.1
percent increase in joblessness in the 12 months since December 2008,
bringing its jobless rate to 12.9 percent. Peoria, home of Caterpillar
Inc. and Ameren Illinois Utilities, had a 5 percent increase, to 11.2
percent.
By Mary Ellen Podmolik | A former president and business manager of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 was charged Monday with violating federal labor law for actions involving his buffalo farm in Maryland.
William E. Dugan, 76, formerly of Mount Prospect and now of Hancock, Md., was charged with a misdemeanor in U.S. District Court in Chicago for allegedly demanding and accepting in April 2005 livestock feeders valued at more than $900 for his farm from a company that employed Local 150’s members. The company is not identified in court documents.
Dugan is scheduled to appear for arraignment at a later date.
By Mary Ellen Podmolik
and Zoe Galland
| There may be nothing like a recession to make workers more devoted to
their jobs, according to a new survey. Temporary-help company Kelly Services claims that 34 percent of
employees said they were now more loyal to their companies, while 14
percent were less loyal. Workers in Chicago are more loyal to their employers than
those in Houston or Boston: 32 percent of respondents in Chicago said they felt more loyal toward their employers, just
behind
Los Angeles’ 34 percent. 41 percent of Chicago’s respondents said they feel “totally committed” to
their company.
When asked to name one thing that would make them
more committed to their jobs, workers in Chicago as well as Boston said “more interesting or challenging work,” while workers in Los Angeles,
Northern California, and Houston said it’d have to be “higher salary or
benefits.”
From Crain’s Chicago Business | Every Chicago resident is on the hook for a whopping $5,821 in unfunded liability for pension promises to city and Cook County public employees. According to a new study of 10 funds — including from the city, Cook County, Chicago Public Schools, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Chicago Park District and the Chicago Transit Authority — the average fund had only 67.2% of the investments on hand at the end of fiscal 2008 that will be needed to pay retirement benefits.
Get the full story: chicagobusiness.com.
From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel | The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers criticized Brunswick Corp.’s Mercury Marine unit for paying out bonuses to executives at its headquarters in Fond du Lac, Wis. after hourly workers took pay cuts and made other concessions this fall to save jobs.
Mercury Marine said the bonuses were from Lake Forest-based parent Brunswick and designed to keep attract top management talent.
Get the full story: jsonline.com
McClatchy-Tribune News Service | As Caterpillar rebounds from
one of its worst years ever, rehiring continues at its Pontiac plant,
with 23 laid-off employees expected to return to work.
Four of those employees were on the job Monday, while another 19 are
expected to come back next week, said Larry Stine, financial secretary
for United Auto Workers Local 2096, which represents employees at the
plant.
By Kathy Bergen
| Some of Chicago’s most valuable trade show customers voiced strong opposition this week to key aspects of legislation aimed at making McCormick Place more competitive with lower-cost rival cities.
While those customers supported elements of the bill that would give financial relief to the beleaguered Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the state-city agency that owns and operates the convention hall, some balked at the bill’s proposals to grant the authority exclusive control over the labor unions, which they fear could hike costs to exhibitors.
From NBC Ch. 5 | Four workers at Andersonville’s Ole Ole restaurant filed a federal lawsuit seeking more than $100,000 in back wages, tips and overtime.
Read the full story: nbcchicago.com
By Julie Wernau | After eight years at the helm of some of the city’s most controversial
labor disputes, Chicago Federation of Labor President Dennis Gannon has
decided not to seek re-election in June.
