Chicago, IL – Organizers stood proudly, with their fists up, behind the Immigrant Youth Justice League's new banner as they launched the Equal Rights Campaign on the University of Chicago quad May 20. The incredible eight schools represented, and many others already on board, reported in their speeches how the demands had been delivered to college and university presidents across the city.

There is a big battle going on in the Teamsters Union, pitting reformers against corrupt officials. In Chicago, Teamster union reform leaders, President Richard Berg and Secretary Treasurer Gina Alvarez of Local 743 were removed from office by Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa Jr. this past Friday. Hoffa’s action aids corrupt union officials and criminals trying to worm their way back into Chicago’s Teamster unions. Fight Back! interviewed Richard Berg just before he received the official letter from Hoffa Jr.

Members fighting mad

Chicago, IL – Fight Back! learned May 9 that Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., at a meeting in Las Vegas, has joined with the corrupt Teamsters officials in Chicago to remove President Richard Berg and Secretary Treasurer Gina Alvarez from office in Local 743. Berg and Alvarez are rank-and-file reformers who fought for years against the gangsters who ran their union while Hoffa and officers of the Joint Council in Chicago turned a blind eye to the corruption in the local.

Chicago, IL – 100,000 personas salieron en fuerza a marchar desde el Parque Unión hasta la Plaza Daley. Cada orador del programa denunció la ley de Arizona y la comparó al apartheid. Los jóvenes eran una parte importante de esta manifestación.

Chicago, IL – 100,000 came out in force to march from Union Park to Daley Plaza in the Loop. Speaker after speaker denounced the apartheid-type legislation in Arizona. Youth were a major part of this demonstration.

Chicago, IL – Voting was completed for the 1500 clerical workers at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) represented by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73, April 16. The committee of co-workers elected last summer to negotiate a new contract had called for the vote. On the ballot was one thing: Should the committee be authorized to call a strike if a new contract could not be gained at the bargaining table?

On April 5, the members of the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) prepared for a strike. Their bargaining committee went in for a last-ditch session with a federal mediator and the team from management. After 13 hours at the table, GEO scored a significant victory, emerging with a tentative agreement that protects tuition waivers and increases job security. They also won two years of raises to their minimum stipends and an increase in the university’s contribution for health insurance.