50 picket outside IDOT in Ottawa

About 50 members of the Teamsters Union picketed Wednesday outside the Illinois Department of Transportation office in Ottawa.

Jon Woodyer of Teamsters Local 916, a union steward for IDOT District 3, said he wanted to call attention to the unfair terms being offered by Gov. JB Pritzker.

“Our governor’s office proposal removes good union insurance and causes a contractual overall loss of over 24% take-home pay, on average,” Woodyer said. “The governor’s office is proposing a large segment of our members to start at $32,000 a year and require a two-year degree or equivalent. This is federal poverty-level wages.”

Teamsters, which has gone without a contract for seven months and is angered by the course of negotiations, is preparing to vote on whether to vote to authorize a strike, union President JP Fyans said.

Rallies are being organized in the state’s nine IDOT districts, starting with one organized by union locals 330, 700, 916 and the union umbrella organization, Joint Council 25, that ran from 6:30 to 9 a.m. Wednesday in the District 1 office at 201 W. Center Court in Schaumburg.

About five Local 916 members at the District 3 office in Ottawa organized their own picket line during the Wednesday lunch hour.

Randy Freeman, a union member of more than 20 years and a former La Salle County Board member, was among those who assembled in Ottawa. He said workers are being squeezed insofar as union membership is tumbling – down 24% over the past decade, by his estimate – while the volume of work is increasing.

This is the time to boost wages and benefits, not curtail them, he said.

“We just want to be compensated fairly,” Freeman said.

Chad Nelson, another union member, broke away to participate in the noon rally as a show of solidarity.

“I think it’s really important to show we’re standing together as a membership,” he said.

In a pre-picket statement, union members said they’d been working without a contract for almost nine months.

“The governor’s office is essentially asking state workers to deliver one of the largest-ever state highway construction programs with very little pay increases and a reduction of benefits,” the union said. “IDOT workers are on the path to strike to protest this unfair treatment. While we don’t want to, this may result in no services to the public. This is a very dangerous outcome.”

The governor’s office did not return an email requesting comment. IDOT issued only a brief statement.

“The Illinois Department of Transportation values its employees and looks forward to continuing a successful partnership with all of its collective bargaining units now and into the future,” public information officer Paul Wappel said in the statement.

Teamsters has been working without a contract since it expired June 30, and there have been at least 20 bargaining sessions, with no proposal on the table and no concessions from the state, he said.

“Mediators have been brought in, and we are following the process,” Fyans said, but “a vote to authorize a vote to strike is in the works.”