In Illinois’ changing ‘Valley,’ give thanks for jobs

Bill Knight column for 11-25, 26 or 27, 2019

There doesn’t seem to be economic planning behind the slow evolution of jobs in Illinois, so give thanks this week if you’re employed, whether a legacy job or a trendy tech gig.

The state seems to be in a “valley,” as haphazard moves by business and government careen from “How Green Was My Valley” to “Silicon Valley.” The former was Richard Llewellyn’s 1939 novel about coal country (in Wales), adapted to John Ford’s Oscar-winning 1941 film, about changes in coal-mining culture.

“Silicon Valley” is an increasingly mythologized term for the northern California area where Apple, Facebook and tech-industry concerns are located.

Some may see signs of a modernizing economy in changes in Illinois jobs, as high-profile, tech-oriented corporations are adding jobs while 19 more traditional employers are closing or laying off workers, including five coal-fired power plants. But baby-step progress isn’t keeping up with crippling down-sizing. In fact, according to the most recent report on jobs and wages by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), released Nov. 20, Illinois’ economy has been mediocre for months, improving a scant 0.3% in employment and 2.4% in average weekly wages from a year ago.

Detailing the state’s 13 largest counties’ experience, BLS showed Will County leading in job gains with just 1.3% more than 2018 and McHenry County leading in wages, with a decent 3.8% increase. On the negative side, Peoria County was Illinois’ worst in jobs, losing 1.7%, and McLean County the worst in wages, dropping 5.8%, mostly due to “financial activities,” BLS reported.

Meanwhile, more than 1,400 workers have lost their jobs in recent weeks, according to the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) and published reports.

Those losses aren’t close to being offset by gains in employment because of Google, the software firm Relativity, or Amazon.

This month Google opened a second site in Chicago, doubling its area labor force from about 600 to more than 1,200; Relativity announced its intention to hire hundreds of software engineers plus customer-support, marketing and sales staffers in coming months; and last month, Amazon said it plans to open a suburban Chicago warehouse that could employ about 500 people when it opens next fall.

However, the state also is suffering 13 companies closing and 6 others laying off workers, highlighted by Vistra Energy shutting down coal-burning plants near Canton, Havana, Hennepin and Coffeen, which are shedding 61, 73, 59 and 99 jobs, respectively.

The largest loss is a fifth power plant, Peabody Illinois Services in Equality, Ill., in southern Illinois, IDOL said, with the company citing a “poor economy” for its decision to close, costing 226 jobs.

Other triple-digit job losses are at CTI Industries in Lake Barrington (154 jobs in a shutdown), Visage Screen-Print in Des Plaines (112 layoffs), and United Facilities in East Peoria (112 layoffs).

Other Illinois employers cutting jobs are:

* AECOM, a Peoria engineering firm, laying off 30;

* Catholic Charities of Chicago, closing two child-development centers, where a total of 60 people will become jobless;

* Halo Top Creamery in Chicago, closing its ice cream production facility, trimming 28 positions;

* Inpax Final Mile Delivery in Lisle and Mundelein, laying off 69 and 79, respectively;

* Maurice Sporting Goods in Northbrook, laying off 44;

* the restaurant chain O’Charley’s closing its O’Fallon location and costing 51 people their jobs;

* Chicago’s Raffaello Hotel, laying off 27;

* the Oak Brook publisher Refinitiv US laying off 33;

* Willowbrook’s Sterigenics testing lab closing, cutting 17 jobs;

* Itasca’s Veritiv Operating Co., a paper wholesaler, closing and eliminating 43 jobs; and

* Wyndham Vacation Ownership in Chicago, closing and making 80 jobless;

Not yet reported by the state, Walgreens recently closed two Chicago stores as part of “cost transformation” involving about 200 U.S. stores closing.

Illinois isn’t yet a Midwestern Silicon Valley, but shuttered coal-fired plants recall the passing of coal mines in Wales and the United Kingdom, so many may be left with thoughts of dying employment and prayers for hope:

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…”

More and more, ‘they’ are ‘us’

Bill Knight column for 11-21, 22 or 23, 2019

Labor for decades has led by example when it comes to solidarity, unity and empathy, and in recent months that attitude – maybe expressed best in the centuries-old saying “There, but for the grace of God, go I” – has extended not just to other unions, but other people, too.

During the recent strike by the Chicago Teachers Union, the Teamsters honored strikers’ pickets. IBT’s Chicago Local 705 president Juan Capos said, “Teamsters don’t cross picket lines. Today it’s them; tomorrow it’s us.”

In Texas, more than a dozen unions were part of an AFL-CIO delegation to El Paso in recent days, bringing a message of support for immigrant working families there. Federation Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler said, “We’re here to demand an end to the politics of division and hate that are fueling economic inequality and violence.”

Such feelings have grown beyond organized labor, too.

Marine Gen. Jim Mattis – President Trump’s Secretary of Defense for two years before resigning over various disagreements with the President – last month recalled his emotions after August’s El Paso massacre targeting Mexicans killed or wounded 46 people.

“You know, on that day, we were all Hispanics,” Mattis said. “That’s the way we have to think about this. If it happens to any one of us, it happens to all of us.”

A current attempt by the Trump administration to deny citizenship to immigrants who may need – or COULD need – public assistance also is challenging working Americans to see themselves in others’ situations.

Trump is proposing a new and more severe interpretation of the “public charge” regulation, making it difficult for needy immigrant families to use public assistance such as SNAP food stamps, health care, and Medicaid without risking their legal status.

Trump’s other anti-immigrant attacks have included the notorious travel ban for Muslims, denying entry to people traveling through Mexico, scuttling the refugee resettlement program, trying to kill the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Dreamers) and Temporary Protected Status programs, intentional slowing of applications for visas for people who want to move here, and signing the ludicrously named “safe third-country” pacts with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – three of the most dangerous nations in the world.

For regular working Americans coping with unemployment, most realize their layoffs weren’t because of undocumented immigrants “stealing their jobs,” but corporate decisions moving work overseas or sacrificing jobs in consolidations or other shutdowns.

A federal court in Chicago last month blocked the “public charge” policy scheduled to take effect in mid-October. Judge Gary Feinerman, whose decision mirrored similar rulings in California, New York and Washington state, said, “The balance of harms and the public interest favor the grant of a preliminary injunction.”

Ultimately, of course, the case may go to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority thanks to Trump’s appointments of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. So the fight is far from over.

Plus, if Trump’s stricter regulation were applied to everyday Americans – who increasingly need government help, whether jobless benefits, housing help or even Earned Income Tax Credits – millions of people could have their citizenship revoked or be deported as “public charges.”

A 2015 study from the University of California at Berkeley researching state and federal spending on non-elderly public assistance programs – including Medicaid, SNAP food stamps, and Temporary Aid to Needy Families – said almost 60% of that spending goes to working families. (Also, tens of thousands of members of the armed forces need food stamps.)

More and more, “they” are “us.”

And as the late Paul Wellstone, the progressive Senator from Minnesota, famously put it, “We all do better when we all do better.”

Ex-Congressman Phil Hare has no regrets

Bill Knight column for 11-18, 19 or 20, 2019

Two issues obviously dominate the 2020 campaign and conversations over coffee: public hearings into whether President Trump committed bribery or other impeachable acts, and health-care coverage.

Former Illinois Congressman Phil Hare isn’t sure if either is getting explained properly.

Born in Galesburg and raised in the Quad Cities, Hare worked as a factory tailor and became active in the UNITE HERE union before befriending young attorney Lane Evans when they both volunteered during the 1976 Democratic primaries. In 1982, Hare helped Evans get elected to Congress, after which he was Evans’ District Director, then successor after Evans resigned due to health.

The health of insurance coverage remains an issue. Republicans in Washington continue to attack the Affordable Care Act, again challenging it in court, and Democratic candidates for president favor some sort of expansion, led by U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Warren and Sanders both support universal coverage run by the government like Medicare, except with no premiums, deductibles or co-payments. More than half of Americans support “Medicare for All,” Kaiser Family Foundation found this fall, but opposition has increased, mostly based on how it could be funded.

Sanders proposes a payroll tax on employers of upper-income people replacing premium contributions companies pay for workers’ coverage, reducing employers’ costs. Warren wants large employers to pay 98 percent of their current health-insurance expenditure as their part of the new program.

Here in Illinois, Hare isn’t surprised at Americans’ yearning for better health-care coverage. But it is remarkable that the issue is still around almost a decade after it cost him his job on Capitol Hill.  Looking back at his time as Lane Evans’ aide for 23 years and his two terms as Congressman from the 17^th District, Hare says it’s past time to deal with it.

“I didn’t lose just because the Tea Party took a comment out of context,” he says. “It was health care – the Affordable Care Act (ACA).”

During the 2010 campaign, challengers attacked Hare for defending the ACA as Constitutional (which the Roberts Supreme Court affirmed in 2012), but opponents campaigned with a video edited so Hare’s heard saying, “I don’t worry about the Constitution…”

Hare doesn’t regret that fight.

“When I lost, my son said, ‘Sorry,’ and I said, ‘Don’t be sorry’.” Hare says. “Losing was worth it. I’d do it again. It was health care.”

Universal health care is personal for him, he says. When Hare was a boy, his family had a costly medical emergency and though his dad, a machinist, sometimes worked three jobs, they lost their home, Hare recalls.

“In fact, at my sister’s wedding, a process server gave us notice [of eviction],” he says. “It wasn’t Dad’s fault [but] I remember him worrying. [Now,] people still come up to me and thank me for health-care reform.”

Like the misleading attack in 2010, foes sometimes overwhelm debate with falsehoods.

“Democrats got hammered with exaggerations and lies, and the party didn’t do a good job presenting the proposal,” he says. “I support health care for everybody, and that needs to be explained in everyday language. As Lane used to say, ‘You don’t buy a ticket to France and get off the plane and speak Spanish.’

“We should have gone on TV and said, ‘This is what it is, and this is what it isn’t,’ and that’s true with almost any idea,” he continues. “Because if Democrats don’t explain it, Republicans will spin it their way.

“Ordinary people will support it; people aren’t stupid,” he adds.

As for “the elephant in the room” – the House investigating the President – Hare says it’s not treasonous; it’s required, which should be explained.

“We need an impeachment inquiry,” he says. “It’s the House’s duty. The criticism that impeachment takes away from legislation is ridiculous. It doesn’t detract from legislative duties – House Democrats can walk and chew gum at the same time! They’ve passed good legislation, but most has sat on [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell’s desk.”

Indeed, House Democrats have passed hundreds of measures in the last year only to have them held up by McConnell, who’s been criticized for refusing to even schedule votes.

Others in the GOP are dismissing the effort to hold the president accountable for his actions. For example, U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Peoria) last month called the impeachment proceedings an attempted “nullification of an election.”

Hare almost laughs.

“Republicans in Washington are lapdogs,” Hare says. “With few exceptions, they have no courage. Members of Congress are elected to serve, not to get re-elected.”