Springfield Fails To Meet the Moment—But Our Fight’s Not Over
By Neal
| Dear Union Family, Yesterday morning, working Illinoisans woke up to a failure from our state legislature. Even with members of our union making our voices heard up until the final hour, lawmakers failed to pass a budget that reflects the affordability crisis working families are facing. Significantly, our state failed to pass crucial rate increases for private agency home care workers across Illinois. However, our voices still made a difference in the budget. Workers in our union and beyond fought for and won a digital ad tax, sustained funding for safety net hospitals, and a path to a union for over 100,000 workers in our sister local, SEIU Local 1. |
| Home Care Home care workers from across our state fought hard for a rate increase that would have raised pay by $2/hour. We know that low wages mean less caregivers as the demand for home care continues to grow. We made sure our stories reached lawmakers through the news, online, and at their office doors. We’re disappointed in our lawmakers who chose not to prioritize seniors and their caregivers. Even though our state ultimately did not meet the moment, we made sure that our voices were heard and did important work to fight for our communities. We are determined to fight on—and we’re proud to see where our united voices did make a difference. |
| Hospitals Our hospital members fought hard, and thanks to the petitions we signed, post cards we delivered, and subject matter hearings we testified at, we made sure that safety net hospitals received some funding—but our safety nets deserve more, and we will continue to fight to make sure our community hospitals are fully funded. We are ready to make sure that our hospitals receive every dollar of the grants they deserve, and we will continue fighting for our workers’ dignity at the bargaining table. |
| Nursing Homes Our Union secured a significant portion of the fines nursing homes must pay when they violate the staffing minimum laws we won back in 2019. We locked in this money to begin providing training to expand the CNA workforce pipeline. Despite past and ongoing delays, what we secured will allow us to leverage the METC to tackle the Illinois nursing home staffing shortage head-on—ensuring residents get quality care —and strengthening our workforce so workers can join and stay in the field. After one of our members shared her powerful story in committee earlier this session, our Union successfully passed SB3967. This bill clarifies exactly what employers must pay CNAs, ensuring workers receive crucial protections and are paid fairly for their paid time off. While some nursing home owners have unfortunately failed to comply with the law and pay what is owed, SB3967 provides the clear language needed to correct this problem—ensuring we finally get the wages we deserve. |
| Union-Wide Revenue Fight Workers across our entire union were also part of the fight to win Illinois’s first ever digital advertisement tax on big tech companies like Amazon and Google, which will provide much needed revenue in the future to fund programs that have been in danger from federal attacks. Home care, child care, hospital, and nursing home workers from our union led the way to this historic fight. We held local actions in our communities, took the fight to large corporations like Amazon, and spent the last week of session holding rallies, story times, and vigils in Springfield. We also won additional revenue by ensuring that wealthy corporations that are already benefitting from Trump’s tax giveaways can’t avoid paying their fair share in Illinois. These wins are significant, but we must continue to fight with others to build the public demand and political will to raise revenue from billionaire and mega-corporations to fund the services our communities need and deserve. |
| Win for SEIU Local 1 Rideshare Drivers We are also proud to announce a huge win for our union’s state council and our sister local, SEIU Local 1, as over 100,000 rideshare drivers won the right to form a union. The rideshare owners that have tried to deny drivers their rights and dignity for years are the same billionaires who would rather see our budget balanced on the backs of working people instead of paying their fair share. This is a victory for all workers! |
| This year’s legislative session was an important battle for our union members—but it is not the end of our fight. This budget falls short of what working families need as we face the threat of rising costs, cut to SNAP, and attacks on Medicaid. But we also see a glimpse of what is possible when we fight together. Our union is leading the way in the fight of our generation: the fight to create a future that prioritizes working peoples’ lives, not corporate profits. In solidarity, Greg Kelley President, SEIU HCIIMK |