Sandburg students took home six state championships and eight medals overall at the SkillsUSA Illinois Championships from April 24-26 in Peoria, according to a news release.
Gavin Gerard won gold in masonry and for job interview. Joining him as state champions were Faith Kiprop (technical computer applications), Brian Kipchemis (medical math), Ascar Jepchirchir (medical terminology) and Sullivan Ross (welding sculpture).
Sandburg students (l-r) Faith Kiprop, Ascar Jepchirchir, Deven Bushong, Sullivan Ross, Gavin Gerard, Ryan Leary and Brian Kipchemis hold their awards from the SkillsUSA Illinois Championships on April 26 in Peoria. Gerard (masonry, job interview), Kiprop (technical computer applications), Kipchemis (medical math) Jepchirchir (medical terminology) and Ross (welding sculpture) won their respective categories to advance to the national competition next month in Atlanta. (Courtesy Carl Sandburg College)
As winners of their respective categories, all five students qualified to compete at the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference from June 24-29 in Atlanta. This is the second consecutive year Gerard and Kiprop have advanced to the national level. Gerard qualified in the job interview category last year, and Kiprop qualified in technical computer applications.
Also appearing on the medal stand for Sandburg at the state competition were Ryan Leary and Deven Bushong. Leary won silver in welding sculpture, and Bushong was the bronze medalist in that category.
More than 2,000 students took part in the state championship event, which featured competitions in over 100 trade, technical and leadership fields.
More than 5,000 students who are expected to compete at the SkillsUSA national conference. SkillsUSA serves students at the college, high school and middle school level who are preparing for careers in trade, technical and skilled-service occupations and for further education.
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- By HANNAH MEISEL
Capitol News Illinois
hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD – Stateville Correctional Center could close as early as September under a plan laid out by Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration on Friday.
Top officials with the Illinois Department of Corrections testified in front of a key panel of state lawmakers. The 12 members on the General Assembly’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability face a mid-June deadline to make a recommendation on the governor’s plan to close and rebuild a pair of prisons in central Illinois and in Chicago’s south suburbs.
But no matter what the panel decides, the Pritzker administration can go ahead with its plans so long as money is built into the state’s next budget.
“I want everybody to understand that (any) recommendation that comes from this commission here is advisory,” COGFA Co-Chair Dave Koehler, a Democratic state senator from Peoria, said after 1 ½ hours of testimony on the matter in front of his panel Friday.
“Yes sir, I do understand that,” replied Mike Newman, the deputy director of AFSCME Council 31, the union that represents some 80,000 state workers – including most employees within the Department of Corrections.
Newman, along with several members of the panel, expressed strong reservations about Pritzker’s plan to close Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill and Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln.
The governor announced the plan in March, and late last month his administration provided more details on the plan, revealing Logan Correctional Center – one of only two women’s prisons in Illinois – may be rebuilt on the grounds of Stateville, which would expand the state’s current operations into a multi-functional campus.
Local elected officials have joined organized labor in pushing back against the plan for Logan CC, citing economic impact on the rural area north of Springfield.
Asked about that pushback this week, Pritzker said state and local officials should focus more on “attracting great new private sector jobs” like those in the new Ferrero Rocher factory in Bloomington, where the governor traveled Tuesday for a ribbon cutting.
“And I think that really is the future for most places across the state, to not rely upon a state-run facility that’s a prison,” he said. “That can’t be a great economic growth strategy for the area.”
The governor announced the prison closure plan in March, 10 months after the administration received a report it had commissioned on the deferred maintenance of state prisons.
The report detailed deteriorating buildings, compromised water supplies, infestations and all manner of recommended repairs and upgrades – including to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The total price tag to fully address those deficiencies would cost an estimated $2.5 billion to fully address, according to the report by Atlanta-based CGL Companies, a consulting firm that specializes in buildings and maintenance.
“The costly repairs needed to remedy all of the issues identified by the CGL report and the structural engineering survey still will not resolve the design deficiencies present in the 1920s structure,” IDOC Acting Director Latoya Hughes said of Stateville during testimony to the panel Friday.
Hughes and her deputies did not dispute lawmakers’ assertions that the agency is aiming to close Stateville in September, though they did acknowledge the five-year timeline to fully phase out the dilapidated prisons could be in flux.
Logan Correctional Center, meanwhile, would be kept open as long as possible, Hughes said, in order to accommodate both current inmates and staff.
When inmates are moved out of their current facilities – whenever that might be – IDOC will have to spend nearly $7 million to place them elsewhere, according to a report the agency filed recently.
“We want to be clear that the department will not reclassify the security level of individuals in custody,” Hughes told the panel Friday. “Rather, we will look at their medical, mental health, programmatic and educational needs, along with their security level, to identify a proper placement for them in a facility that security designation.”
AFSCME has pushed back on the plan since it was announced in March, and Friday was no different. Newman, the union’s deputy director, repeatedly cast doubt on IDOC’s internal estimates of both costs and jobs.
He threw cold water on the agency’s assurances that current prison employees would be guaranteed job transfers with minimal disruption to their lives, citing the long distances some may need to drive to a new facility.
“And even if there are vacancies at facilities like Sheridan or Pontiac, those are very likely too difficult a commute for Stateville employees, given especially that many are already traveling from Chicago and its suburbs, that most are frequently working overtime, which can make their workday as long as 16 hours,” he said.
Koehler told both IDOC and AFSCME representatives that he would be seeking an extension for convening a pair of legally mandated community hearings on the closures.
Under state law, COGFA would be required to organize those hearings by June – a nearly impossible task, Koehler said, given the General Assembly’s typical end-of-May adjournment for its spring legislative session.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of print and broadcast outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.
By ALEX ABBEDUTO
Capitol News Illinois
abbeduto@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD – With two weeks left before the General Assembly’s spring session is set to adjourn, negotiations continue on a labor union-backed initiative that would allow Illinoisans to skip religious and political work meetings without reprimand.
Dubbed the “Worker Freedom of Speech Act,” Senate Bill 3649 advanced out of the Senate on May 2 with only Democratic support.
The Illinois AFL-CIO labor organization brought the measure to Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago, in an effort to ban what the unions refer to as employer-sponsored “captive audience meetings” pertaining to religion and politics. Labor advocates say the meetings give employers an opportunity to coerce employees to listen to anti-union rhetoric.
Employers found breaking the law would have to pay $1,000 per violation and provide relief to the wronged employee as the court dictates, which could involve paying owed wages and reinstating their position.
The measure has thus far not been assigned to a substantive committee in the House.
Rep. Marcus Evans, D-Chicago, a union ally and chair of the House Labor and Commerce Committee, is the measure’s House sponsor. He said he believes there is enough support for it to pass in the final two weeks – although a minor amendment could be forthcoming.
Read more: Unions back measure protecting employees who skip religious or political work meetings
In 2022, Jennifer Abruzzo, the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel, filed a memorandum asking the board to review its stance on the meetings. She wrote “forcing employees to listen to such employer speech under threat of discipline – directly leveraging the employees’ dependence on their jobs” violates labor law. An updated ruling on the matter could come once the NLRB finishes reviewing an ongoing court case from 2018.
In the 1946 case NLRB v. Clark Bros Co. Inc., the NLRB decided captive audience meetings were illegal under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, labeling them an anti-union tactic. The Taft-Hartley Act, which passed in 1947, reinstated an employer’s right to host the meetings if they do not threaten or bribe the employees.
Research from the Economic Policy Institute indicates six states – Connecticut, Minnesota, Maine, Oregon, New York and Washington – have outlawed the meetings, while 10 other states, in addition to Illinois, introduced similar legislation within the last year.
A lawsuit filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce against the state of Connecticut for its implementation of a “captive audience meeting” ban was partially dismissed in 2023. The plaintiffs, who believe the law violates employers’ First and 14th Amendment rights to political speech, requested a judgment in April 2024. Various business associations, including the National Federation of Independent Business Inc., filed a similar suit against Minnesota earlier this year that is pending.
In Illinois, the bill ran into roadblocks earlier this session as advocacy groups were worried it would prevent them from talking to their employees about their jobs. An amendment to the measure now exempts organizations working in religion and policy from the act – specifically, groups with 501(c)(4), 501(c)(5), and 501(c)(6) IRS statuses.
Unlike 501(c)(3) organizations – the designation typically given to charities – social welfare groups, labor and agricultural organizations, and business leagues and trade associations with 501(c)(4, 5 and 6) designations can freely lobby and engage with political campaigns. Since much of their work involves policy issues, some felt like they needed extra protections to continue it.
Ed Yohnka, director of communications and public policy for the Illinois American Civil Liberties Union, which has a 501(c)(4) designation, said his was one of the groups pushing for an amendment because there was concern staff would no longer be able to talk about work at mandatory work meetings.
“If we spoke about an issue that we were working on – to try and advance trans rights, or try to advance reproductive rights, or try to advance other rights in some other way – would that run afoul of the black letter of the law in terms of compelling someone to hear speech about an issue as part of their job, even when someone may not be working on that?” Yohnka said.
The amendment added language that explicitly says nothing in the bill prohibits organizations with a 501(c)(4, 5 or 6) designation from mandating meetings where the employer would communicate its political beliefs.
Yohnka said it was clear during conversations with Peters and his legislative team, the measure was not intended to interfere with the work of advocacy groups. Because of the changes, he said ACLU believes the measure “won’t have any impact on the work of the ACLU or other similar organizations.”
The amendment also created exemptions for religious organizations to communicate their religious beliefs and for regulatory bodies, like the General Assembly, to communicate policy initiatives.
Although it does not explicitly exclude 501(c)(3) organizations, Peters told Capitol News Illinois the law would not apply to employers talking to employees about political and religious matters related to their work.
He said it only applies to meetings and conversations that have “nothing to do with your work” and are “explicitly trying to get you to change your beliefs.”
A previous amendment granted exemptions for required diversity, equity and inclusion training and higher education employers speaking to employees about coursework and research.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of print and broadcast outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.
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