Chicago News Roundup: Pay Hospital Workers, You Guys.

Hi — I’m H. I’m a burnt-out organizer. This is a Chicago news roundup. It’s how I keep track of the 3000 niche municipal stories that happen in Chicago.

Well — it’s how I keep track of the ones that matter.

Want to get these updates every week?

Hello,

It’s Friday, 7/28.

I’m moving! I’m job hunting! I’m taking a metalcraft class!

The ocean is, uh, collapsing?

What’s up with you guys?

Explainer: Hospital Workers on Strike

Frontline workers from three Chicago safety net hospitals are ready to strike: the staffing crisis at these 3 South and West side hospitals is endangering the safety of patients.

Safety net hospitals are medical facilities that provide health care and critical services to low-income communities. At these hospitals, many of the patients are either enrolled in Medicaid public health insurance or have no medical insurance at all.

What is responsible for this staffing shortage, you ask? Well, as so often happens when no one wants to work anymore, it’s the pay!  A quote from Block Club:

This chronically understaffing is causing current staff to work hours that compromise their safety and the safety of patients. The hospital also didn’t recognize Juneteenth which is tacky for a hospital in Austin.

Workers are sick of this treatment, and delivered a 10-day strike notice to the hospital's administration at Loretto Hospital on the city's West Side last Thursday. 

Loretto, like many Chicago institutions, has been in the news recently for corruption.

Striking employees (around 200 employees at each hospital) would include: patient care technicians, emergency room technicians, mental health and behavioral health workers, respiratory and radiology technicians, and housekeeping workers. 

The strike is planned for Monday, the 31st.

What Else Happened This Week?

+ Bring Home Chicago, a campaign to create a real estate transfer tax hike that funds homelessness services, rallied with alders towards a 2024 ballot initiative. This campaign asks the question—

What if we had enough money for homelessness services, ever, in Chicago?

What if we paid for services for the 650,000 people (and growing) experiencing homelessness here, by taxing people selling houses worth more than $1 million dollars?

Lightfoot punted this one after committing to it pre-election. Let’s see what happens!

Today in Movement History:

Maximilien Robespierre, a radical Jacobin leader and one of the principal figures in the French Revolution, was guillotined before a cheering mob in Paris.

Everyone freaking HATED Robespierre because he was a little twerp.

He Exhibited Little Twerp Behavior Like:

Spitting toothpaste water at coalition partners,

Having a nervous breakdown and then coming back to power to run the Reign of Terror,

Generally incapable of speaking to humans if it wasn’t a speech about The Cause.

If you’re a huge nerd, you should read The Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Revolutionary Paris, which is fun if you like history, primary documents where revolutionary farmers notate everything they ate in a day (and, more critical to history, what time they heard the cries of the mob on July 9th), or terrible coalition partners.

Anyway, back to Chicago.

Stuff I Read That I Liked:

+ Jim Daley at South Side Weekly FOIAed the city re: the NASCAR races. Spoiler: it was WAY too much money.

+ PE Moskowitz wrote about the energy it takes to maintain climate denial and what happens after climate despair. It’s a bummer but they’re always good to read.

Afterthought:

Starting Thursday I will live in Rogers Park. Come hang out with me and prominent musician and audio engineer Kate In — or tell us where to buy a couch.