CHICAGO CULTURAL ALLIANCE

Dear Editor,

Presented as a one-of-akind montage of voices, memories and experiences of families in Chicago, the “Chicago Families: Where Community Begins” exhibit will encompass six sites and span May through October, 2015. Conceived by the Chicago Cultural Alliance [CCA], the project explores the concept of family in different community contexts and demonstrates how crosscultural collaboration can serve to create new and alternative perspectives on the world.

Each exhibit, which showcases people coming together to share stories, break boundaries and bring cultural understanding to the basics, is being curated by a project team from 17 organizations with varying community identities and perspectives. Designed to start a dialogue and make connections.

The CCA expects that these stories will inspire and empower visitors to tell their own story, and to re-think connections with their family, neighbors and community.

CCA is a growing consortium of 34 ethnic museums, cultural centers, and historical societies that work together to effect social change through greater public understanding of cultural diversity. The Alliance supports and nurtures the gems of Chicago’s ethnic communities, and helps local residents and visitors alike to engage with and learn from these institutions they otherwise might never know—their collections, programs, and perspectives. Through collaborative programs, the Alliance brings civic engagement to a cross-cultural level, as Members from different communities work together with common purpose—and shed new light on contemporary issues from immigration to education to family structures.

 

AMY FALK CCA CHICAGO

SEIU IL State Council Endorsed Mayoral Candidate Chuy Garcia, Local 1 Janitors to Rally at BMO Headquarters for Good Jobs

 

CHICAGO – Hundreds of janitor members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1 held a rally on March 16, outside of 111W. Monroe (BMO Harris Bank) calling on the wealthy BMO corporation to do right by the hardworking janitors who clean their offices in both downtown Chicago as well as the suburbs by providing them with a living wage and benefit. They were joined by Jusus “Chuy” Garcia who was endorsed for mayor on March 15 by SEIU Illinois State Council.

Janitors with EBM, Inc. who clean the BMO offices in Naperville perform the same job as the union janitors at the BMO headquarters in Chicago but paid significantly less and have no benefits. BMO Financial Group made $4.3 billion in profits in 2014. In fact, every six minutes BMO makes enough money to raise the pay of all 10 Naperville janitors to $15 an hour and provide family health insurance for an entire year.

Janitors, who clean the buildings and office space of the richest corporations in America, are rallying for a good contract with a wage increase that will keep their families out of poverty. The contract is negotiated only every three years.

BACKGROUND:

The janitorial contracts that impact the livelihood of 22,000 SEIU Local 1 members and their families. Contracts are expiring in 2015 and 2016 across the Midwest. Chicago bargaining leads more than 130,000 SEIU janitors in cities across the country—janitors from Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York—whose union contracts also expire in 2015 and 2016.

Chicago-area janitors’ contract negotiations started on March 4. Their contract, impacting more than 12,000 local janitors, expires on April 5, 2015.

IZABELAMILTKO