22 States, including Illinois, sue to stop cuts to research grants
As part of billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to slash funding of public institutions, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a major, catastrophic overhaul in its research grant
Billionaire Elon Musk has painted a target on the backs of the federal employees, launching mass layoffs on Feb. 14 which affected tens of thousands of federal employees. But unionized federal employees are standing up and fighting back.
Mail scanning program will pilot at two facilities soon
Over the past several years, as the use of drugs among the IDOC prison population has steadily increased, so have the negative consequences for employees—with many being overcome by the substances released into the air when ind
The Illinois Department of Corrections has entered into an agreement with John A. Logan College in Carterville to make the college its Southern Region Training Academy, which will accommodate an additional 100 trainees per cadet class.
AFSCME and our allies in the We Are One Illinois coalition are vowing to carry the fight for pension fairness forward into the spring legislative session, but it’s going to take the involvement of every AFSCME member to get it over the finish line.
Threat of federal cuts to state budget looms large
The Trump administration created widespread confusion and chaos last week, launching an all-out effort to vastly reduce federal funding to state and local governments.
Shaleah Blackshear has lived in Lake County most of her life. The people who work for the Lake County Health Department are her neighbors. They’re the friendly faces she sees at the grocery store. Some are longtime family friends.
On Jan. 27, the Trump administration issued a memo halting disbursement of all federal funding appropriated by Congress. The public sector was a particular target, with services like Medicaid brought to a screeching halt, payment portals for Head Start and other vital programs shut down, and the jobs of tens of thousands of public workers in jeopardy.
The ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles have devastated parts of that city, destroying tens of thousands of homes, killing dozens of people, and upending countless lives. Yet as AFSCME members in Los Angeles have experienced unimaginable destruction, they continue to serve their communities, putting others first even while they face incredible personal losses.
Following a long and arduous process, the Chicago City Council passed a budget for 2025 on Dec. 16. The good news: The $17.3 billion budget contains no layoffs or furloughs of AFSCME members.
State Rep. Gregg Johnson is an AFSCME retiree and the former president of AFSCME Local 46 at East Moline Correctional Center. On Nov. 5, he won re-election to his seat as state representative from Illinois’ 87th District in the Quad Cities area.
Brittany Adams sticks out among the long-haul truckers at the DMV when she goes to renew her Class B Commercial Driver’s License. That’s because she’s not an over-the-road trucker; she works at the Bloomington Public Library, and she drives the library’s 32-foot-long Bookmobile.
If you live in the Chicago area, the twist of your faucet yields some of the cleanest, purest drinking water in the world—and you have AFSCME members to thank for it.
