The more than 3,000 members of our union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, like to say “we move Chicago” — literally. We are the CTA employees who get you where you need to go on the rails and who clean and disinfect the train cars and stations.
Anyone who rides the ‘L’ knows that we’re essential, but the pandemic has brought that fact to the forefront. Nationwide, more than 100 ATU members have died of COVID-19, seven of them here in Chicago.
Like other essential workers, we’re on the job despite the risks. But when we look around, we see wealthy folks who aren’t doing their share. The millionaires and billionaires are getting richer, but when it comes to taxes, they aren’t paying their part. And because they don’t, there’s not enough funding for the hospitals, the social services and, yes, the trains and buses our region relies on every day.
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A vote we cast this fall can make a difference. Voting yes for the fair tax constitutional amendment will make the wealthiest pay a little more in taxes on income over $250,000, while working folks who make less than that will get a tax cut.
I’m voting yes because, by lifting the burden off middle class and poor people, it’s a concrete way we can do something for the essential workers who serve us all.
The fair tax revenue raised from the millionaires and billionaires will help working people in every part of Illinois. I grew up in East St. Louis; since moving to the Chicago area, I’ve lived in the west suburbs, in Englewood and Hyde Park on the South Side, and now in the south suburbs.
I’ve seen needs in every one of those communities, and the fair tax amendment isn’t just talk. It’s real action toward equity between the rich and the rest of us, as well as our fair share of funding for our neighborhoods and the services we need.
ATU members move Chicago. With fair tax reform, everyone can help move Illinois.
Deborah Lane, secretary-treasurer
Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 308
Attacking Tammy Duckworth
The Republican attack dog Tucker Carlson goes after a double amputee veteran, Tammy Duckworth, who serves as our senator and there is not a peep of outrage?
He questioned her patriotism. From Democrats and Republicans, no one? Hey, Tucker, you never served your country. Carlson does the bidding of our draft-dodging president, who mistreated a Gold Star family, attacked Sen. John McCain for being captured in Vietnam, etc.
Really patriotic, that Republican Party. Really love our vets. Until they speak truth to power.
Edward Juillard, Morgan Park
Drug prohibition is the problem
I have a beef.
Most, or at least much, of the gun violence in Chicago and other American cities is caused by drug gangs. Drug gang members are employed and living off the fruits of drug prohibition policy and illicit markets that are inherently violent, very competitive. It’s survival of the nastiest.
It bothers me that our political leaders point to every other cause but not the dominant one: drug prohibition. It is the elephant in the room, the same elephant casting its shadow of doom, hopelessness and gloom over the entire world.
Al Capone must be smiling from his grave to see his legacy and philosophy of life rejuvenated: I’m a businessman. I just give the people what they want.
We ask our leaders to stop the violence, but each leader is assigned that duty at the same time society says, drug prohibition is a given.
And there’s the rub. There’s my beef.
Society cannot have the drug war switch tuned “ON” and the gun violence turned “OFF.” Same switch. Simple as that.
James E. Gierach, Palos Park
