Did supporting a Democrat help Cook County strikers?

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73 members returned to work on July 13 after an eighteen day strike against the Board of Cook County, Illinois. A previous article on this site provided some background on this situation. SEIU 73 organizes about 2,500 County employees. These workers are mainly Black and Latinx and largely female. Local 73 includes blue collar workers and social workers at Stroger and Provident Hospitals, County health care workers at the Jail, County transportation workers, and the staff at the Board and County Clerk’s offices. About 500 workers were enjoined from striking by a court injunction, so about 2,000 members were on strike.

The workers have been through a very difficult situation. They are generally paid less than other Cook County workers. They worked throughout the Covid pandemic, not only at Stroger and Provident but also at the jail. For a time Cook County jail was the worst super-spreader location in the nation.

Bargaining for a new contract dragged on for months and got nowhere. So, on June 25 the strike began. Two issues appeared to be central to the strikers. The first was health insurance costs. In many cases, management’s proposed increase in premium payments was larger than the whole of the worker’s proposed wage increase. This meant that workers would see an actual decrease in wages. The second big issue was a pay increase commensurate with other Cook County employees.

This turned out to be a complicated issue. Four days into the strike, the three unions (AFSCME, Nurses, and Teamsters) who represent other workers at Cook County settled for 8.5 percent over four years. This left the SEIU out on its own. The county then made a lot of noise about how the SEIU wanted to receive more than the other unions settled for. A quick look behind the headlines dispels this myth. One doesn’t have to be a great mathematician to realize that 8.5 percent of a larger paycheck is more than 8.5 percent of a smaller paycheck. Furthermore, the nurses’ contract contains three 2 percent longevity increases. At the same time, the AFSCME contract contains a higher top step of the salary schedule which in turns leads to some increases in the rest of the schedule.

This was not a passive strike. The union held a consistent series of pickets and demonstrations. Rallies and marches were held across the county. However, on July 13, it was announced that the union and the county had settled. These are some of the main points in the agreed upon package. The new wage increase is the same 8.5 percent over four years as the other County workers received. There was some improvement in hazard pay and seniority language. The union did not get what it wanted on health care. Local President Dian Palmer was quoted as saying, “We ended up having to pay more over the next four years for health care premiums than we did in the last contract, so that was a concession.” Two important issues will be referred to arbitration: wage rates for the lowest paid workers and annual seniority steps.

Preckwinkle’s intransigence on health care and real wage parity reflects her general hostility toward the union and its members throughout the strike. The union responded in kind. Preckwinkle was denounced at rallies and demonstrations. T-shirts were made with Preckwinkle’s face in a red circle with a “no” line across it. Picketers chanted slogans against her. The strikers rightly saw her as their main adversary.

Leadership’s support for Toni Preckwinkle

The crying shame in this situation is that theSEIU is a long time endorser and financial backer of Toni Preckwinkle. Let’s look at just a few examples. In 2013, the Better Government Association (an Illinois watchdog group) reported the following: “‘We did support [Preckwinkle] in the primary and the general election [in 2010] because we knew she was a true progressive and that’s who we believe we need in these positions,’ said SEIU Illinois State Council president Tom Balanoff. He said SEIU has known and supported Preckwinkle for more than 20 years, since her earliest days in the Chicago City Council.”

Preckwinkle’s failed 2019 Mayoral bid had significant SEIU support. When the union donated one million dollars in 2018, SEIU Local 1 spokeswoman Izabela Miltko-Ivkovich said, “The janitors, home care providers, public employees and thousands of working families united in the SEIU Illinois State Council are committed to do whatever it takes to elect the first African-American woman mayor of Chicago, the only true progressive in the race, and that starts with making sure Toni Preckwinkle has the adequate resources to compete and win.” This donation was only half of the two million dollars that the union donated to Preckwinkle.

The union leadership made their attitude clear in a December 6, 2018 press conference. “Leaders of SEIU Healthcare Illinois, SEIU Local 73 and the Chicago Teachers Union announced today their joint endorsement of Toni Preckwinkle to be the next mayor of Chicago.

Union representatives cited Preckwinkle’s track record on progressive issues as reasons for the endorsement.”

At that press conference, Dian Palmer said, “Every now and then you get a person who is from the city, is of the city, who cares about the citizens of the city and they say ‘here am I, send me.’ Toni has done that. She works for Cook County as its president and she says she can do more. She’s a woman who thinks outside the box.” Preckwinkle was also supported by CTU President Jesse Sharkey, who said, “Toni represents hope for the future and this city is ready for a new vision at the top.”

Workers’ action is the alternative

The SEIU’s support for Preckwinkle is not a particular oddity or an aberration. Support for Democrats is the default political position of the AFL-CIO and other major unions. The Cook County strike enables us to examine a microcosm of this perspective. We should ask the question: how has the strategy of supporting the Democratic Party worked out in the very concrete and immediate case of Toni Preckwinkle and the Cook County workers?

The reality is that this strategy has failed. The person who the union leadership has been endorsing and donating to led the charge against the union. One can’t say that Toni Preckwinkle has changed or that the current situation is an unforeseeable surprise. Preckwinkle acted during the Cook County strike exactly as Democratic Party elected officials typically do. Her hostility to the strike and workers was completely predictable. That class hostility is in the DNA of the Democratic party.

The strike has not only shown us the impossibility of using the Democrats to advance working class interests. It also has shown us the outlines of an alternative course for labor. The workers were on strike for three difficult weeks. We saw large and vibrant pickets, a sea of purple at Damen and Ogden, and the closing down of County sites in Buffalo Grove and Hickory Hills. Lively demonstrations at the downtown County building, rallies, and mass leafleting in different parts of the city were all part of the strike. These actions by SEIU 73 members were examples of the real force that can change the world – the self-activity of the working class.