Victory follows quickly after Local 1787 pickets for safe staffing

Members of AFSCME Local 1787 at the Quincy Veterans Home took to the picket line on Sept. 4 to call out the Illinois Department of Central Management Services (CMS) for not taking the necessary steps to foster hiring at the facility.

"We have the best union contract we could ask for. We have the highest pay and the best benefits, but we can't get anybody in the door because CMS won't post these jobs," said Local 1787 President Jennifer Hudelson.

Quincy is short 30 nursing assistants, leaving the remaining 120 employees to work to the point of burnout to make sure that the veterans are cared for. Employees at the home do the important work of caring for our nation's veterans, yet inexplicable hold-ups and endless delays at CMS were preventing open jobs from even being posted on the state's hiring portal.

They had pressed CMS every way they could think of, but still, the jobs went unposted. So they organized a picket with a simple message that CMS could understand.

"Our message was that we want these jobs posted and we want them filled," Hudelson said. "We're not going to take it anymore."
Members walked the picket line with signs saying "Honk for Jobs" and "Post Our Jobs." Members of the Teamsters and Illinois Nurses Association who also work on Quincy's grounds stood on the picket line in solidarity with AFSCME members.

There's no doubt their message was heard loud and clear. Just hours after the picket, all the job postings were made available online.
But the local wasn't done yet. Now that the jobs were posted, members of the local took it upon themselves to also recruit applicants for those jobs. They crafted flyers immediately after the picket advertising the union jobs and blasted them out through their personal Facebook pages.

Within two days of the postings, the union had recruited more than 60 applicants.

Now, the next step is making sure that CMS processes those applications and gets offers and start dates to applicants in a timely manner so they don't end up taking jobs elsewhere.

"We made sure to let management know that we won't hesitate to picket again if we're not seeing action," Hudelson said.