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Labor Day 2002 Wherever you are this day, roll up your sleeves and let's begin Sue
Kaufman, President Local 4100
Stephen P. Yokich Sitting bathed in the stained glass sifted light of St. Barnabas Church in Chicago, I found the Saturday of Labor Day weekend to be a time to reflect upon the meaning of this Labor Day. Labor officials, family and friends were gathered to honor the memory of United Auto WorkersÕ President Stephen P. Yokich, who died Aug. 16. Most of us knew the late UAW leader through the headlines he made. Our contact with the Yokich family has been and continues to be through his son, Steve, one of our attorneys with the Cornfield and Feldman Law Firm. SteveÕs dad had just retired. He was 66-years-old and had drawn just one pension check. The late Steve Yokich was a man who knew his industry, Rev. Raymond Tillrock told us. This was a man who knew how tough it is for people to gather together to bargain for what is right. The UAW leader was a man who understood that in many ways uniting people in collective bargaining today is even harder than it was in the late 1930s when his mother brought him to his first picket line as a two-year-old. What does all this have to do with us? What does this mean in terms of our current contract negotiations, and our future work in providing quality higher education to our students, and security and promise to our faculty and staff represented by our collective bargaining activities in University Professionals of Illinois? Your UPI Staff and elected leaders just spent two-and-a-half days in a facilitated retreat workshop addressing questions of how best to serve you. We talked a lot about the importance of understanding the condition of the economic, social and political waters we are swimming in and dependent upon for our livelihoods and existence. Our students are coming to us from an economy and world that looks, in part, like this:
"People are angry that theyÕre losing their savings to a corrupt corporate system they thought they could trust," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, said. "ThatÕs why more Americans than ever say they would join a union tomorrow to improve their lives if given the chance." What does this all mean to faculty and staff on our campuses? It means that the public Ñ potential voters Ñ are angry and frightened that they wonÕt have the money to send their children to college, to guarantee themselves good health benefits, and a sound retirement. It means that while they have a growing distrust of corporations, they are probably going to be very interested in "legislative initiatives to hold corporations accountable, such as protecting workersÕ pay and retirement in employer bankruptcy, and giving workers the same choices and protections in retirement plans that top executives enjoy. The Peter Hart survey also shows that support for privatization of Social Security is a political negative this year, costing a candidate more votes than it garners." And it also means that major universities themselves are going to be looked at with greater scrutiny in terms of how theyÕre spending their money. For UPI, we know that in coming weeks and months we will be re-emphasizing the need for our universities to continually re-examine their priorities in terms of what comes first. We KNOW the answer: people! Students, faculty and staff . . . those areas that drive our ability to continue to provide and sustain quality education for public higher education in the State of Illinois. So on this Labor Day, my message is simple: Brothers and sisters, be you in the classroom, in the halls, or your offices, at the computer, podium or the bargaining table, roll up your sleeves, take a deep breath, and letÕs begin. We have a lot of work to do. ##### |
