Plans to reform Social Security by letting taxpayers direct their Social Security retirement funds from government control to private Wall Street accounts are bad business. So says the Congressional Research Service, an investigative arm of Congress that in June released the details of a study showing such private investment accounts would cut up to 33 percent of guaranteed benefits to both current and future retirees. Council 31 won an accretion election for nine Illinois state Environmental Protection Agency geologists on Sept. 16. Local 725 will accrete the unit of 25 employees. Reports say only one correctional officer was watching the prison yard when the Clifton escape occurred, and a supervisor has been fired as a result.
All escapees are back in custody.
Part of the victory is due to savvy mobilization of community support, especially at Norwest Bank, where employees kept pro-union signs on their desks. The bank president, who also serves on the hospital board, forbade the signs. After two decades of lobbying, probation and parole agents in Wisconsin finally won protective occupation status from the state legislature. The measure provides 1,400 agents the same status as law enforcement and corrections officers, firefighters, conservation wardens and other protective workers, and gives them special retirement provisions and enhanced pension payments for workers who are injured in the line of duty. The committee will submit recommendations to the governor by Jan. 1 of next year.