After 3 Years, Illinois Mental Health Workers Get a Contract

by Seth Michaels, Sep 3, 2009

They fought for more than three years through a strike, a lockout and unfair treatment by management, and now mental health care workers at Heartland Human Services finally have a union contract.

The ordeal these workers went through to get their union contract is another example of why workers need the Employee Free Choice Act. If workers choose a union, they should get a fair first contract.

AFSCME reports that workers at Heartland, based in Effingham, Ill., formed a union with AFSCME Council 31 in February 2006. More than a year passed as workers tried to bargain for a fair first contract, and they finally decided to go on strike in July 2007. After a year on strike, workers tried to return to the bargaining table, but they were locked out by management, who refused to let them return to work. Finally, thanks to the hard work by Council 31 and action from the state of Illinois, which contracts with Heartland, Heartland and its workers have reached agreement on a contract that will let these hardworking mental health care workers get back to serving those in need.

As AFSCME notes, it’s a contract that protects these critical workers’ dignity on the job:

The two-year agreement grants employees unprecedented rights previously denied, including binding arbitration, authority to conduct union activities (such as meeting with stewards) during work hours, freedom from discrimination based on union membership and a prohibition against lockout.

The workers also won substantial salary increases in the first year of the contract, a 2.5 percent increase in year two and more paid time off.

No employee who chooses a union should be forced to wait years for a contract—but this experience is all too common: Studies show that more than half of workers who form a union don’t have a contract a year later and more than one-third still don’t have a contract two years later. It’s time to protect workers like those at Heartland Human Services by passing the Employee Free Choice Act.

Learn more about Heartland workers’ struggle here at the AFSCME website.

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