<div class="gmail_quote"><div style="background-color:#fff"><div><div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b>Central Illinois</b><b> Jobs with Justice</b></span><br>
<br>Open Letter to the Community <br>About the Building and Food
Service Workers' Picket</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The building and food service workers at the University of Illinois are committed to serving the
University community. But despite their efforts to negotiate with the
University administration, <b>the University
administration has refused to bargain in good faith</b>. By frustrating the
employees' efforts to negotiate, the University administration is showing a
lack of concern not only about the building and food service workers, but about
the services that they provide the University community.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The building and food service workers are campus workers who
clean dorms, prepare and serve cafeteria food, empty trash, clean bathrooms, shovel
snow, and salt sidewalks in order to make other work on campus happen
comfortably and safely. <b>For the past nine
months</b>, building and food service workers have been trying to negotiating a
fair contract with the University administration, but <b>the University administration</b> <b>has</b>
<b>refused to cooperate</b>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The building and food service workers want job security and
protection from job erosion. The University is increasingly using temporary
workers and student labor rather than paying full time workers. <b>Temporary workers have no union rights and no
benefits</b> and they lack the training and experience required to provide the
best services.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Food service workers make about $15,000 per year, <b>$7000 below the poverty level for a family
of four</b>. Their income is further limited by the fact that they are laid off
during each University break, which means they only work about seven months of
the year. During these times, they do not qualify for unemployment, and keep
paying their insurance premiums.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>State workers do not
earn Social Security</b>.<span> </span>Their pensions
are their social security, but the State has “borrowed” from the money that
workers pay in, creating a debt that the State now complains it can’t pay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">SEIU presented its full set of proposals for consideration
in June, but in March the University was still asking for new concessions. SEIU
Local 73, the union for building and food service workers, has had to file four unfair labor practice charges against the University for failing to negotiate
over employee benefits and job security.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On January 27th, the building and food service workers overwhelmingly
voted to strike if necessary.<span> </span>The union
has made every effort to compromise with the University.<span> </span><b>But due to the University’s failure to
bargain in good faith, service workers plan to strike on Monday, April 18.</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>We urge community members to show support for the building
and food service workers by honoring and attending union picket lines, and by
communicating to University officials and to the news media that the building
and food service workers have community support and that the University
Administration should bargain in good faith so that the employees can get a
fair contract.</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div></div></div></div></div>