Chicago Park District: Contract Negotiations Begin in January

About 250 SEIU Local 73 union members attended meetings across the Park District before Christmas and voted to approve our bargaining goals. Now many of them volunteered to be contract captains for their parks or departments and take petitions with them so those who didn’t attend can sign on and show support for our goals for our contract.

Here are the goals:

• More meaningful pay increases for every worker, every year.
• Lift the lowest paid workers the most so they can afford to live in Chicago.
• Equal pay for equal work. This includes year round hourly workers who are paid less for doing the same job.
• Year round hourly workers deserve paid vacation and holidays, healthcare benefits and a clear path to full-time monthly positions in the same job title.
• Full staffing to ensure fair workload and the ability to offer programs across our community.
• No concessions.
• Fully funded pension.
• Transfers and promotions that are no longer based on favoritism and who you know or who you are related to.
• Job security including better recourse through the grievance procedure in disciplinary cases and limiting subcontracting (right now politicians and bureaucrats reward their patrons and relatives at our expense).

We start negotiations on January 17th. Every member is invited to attend any and all sessions in whole or in part. They will be at the SEIU Local 73 office, 300 S. Ashland Ave. and will be from 9am to 4:30pm (except as noted).

Here are the dates:

January 17th

January 30th

February 14th (ends at 3:30pm)

February 25th

In addition to attending negotiations, every worker needs to:

• Sign the petition in support of our bargaining goals.
• Make sure there is a contract captain in your park or department, if not then maybe you should step up and do it.
• Make sure you are a member of the union, our membership reflects our unity and our strength. Sign a membership card here.