Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Wednesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

Inbox:

Chicago Field Museum Workers Join National Movement Demanding Management Protect Their Livelihoods During COVID Pandemic
Museum Workers Organize & Fight Decision to Fire Workers Rather Than Trim Executive Compensation
Chicago – Hundreds of Field Museum of Natural History workers escalate their fight to save their jobs by coming together, delivering a petition with over 1,000 signatures to management, and going public to stop the museum from slashing jobs and cutting wages during the COVID pandemic and historic unemployment.
Even though the museum received CARES Act dollars, and Field Museum workers have donated over $200,000 in vacation time to support struggling co-workers, employees’ calls for executives to share in the collective sacrifice to save working families’ incomes have fallen on deaf ears.

On May 19, museum CEO Richard Lariviere held a town hall-style meeting to announce potential layoffs. Jackie Pozza, Assistant Exhibitions Registrar said of the announcement, “When one of the staff asked our CEO Lariviere, who made close to $800,000 in total compensation in 2018, if he would be willing to take a graduated pay cut to save museum staff, and Lariviere said, ‘It would be a meaningless gesture.’ Museum staff disagree.”
Field Museum workers have already sacrificed for the museum, for their colleagues, and for the Chicago community through donating vacation time to their co-workers and struggling families, sewing masks for the public, and repurposing the museum’s 3D printers to make face shields for frontline essential workers.
On Monday, Field Museum workers delivered to management a petition signed by hundreds of workers. They demand:
* A moratorium on all layoffs and pay cuts;
* Museum management share in sacrifice and graduate pay cuts to their own salaries, in line with the Museum’s peer institutions;
* Staff participation in planning for cost-cutting measures, including through a staff representative at all future budget meetings.
What: Field Museum Workers Available for Press Interviews in Fight for Their Livelihoods on Wednesday, June 10
Who: Chicago’s Field Museum Workers
Where: “Man with Fish” statue, Shedd Aquarium, 1200 S. Lake Shore Dr
When: Wednesday, June 10, at 3 p.m.

–
Also from the Inbox:


–
White Flight Site
“Merrillville, the city that was formed by whites after they fled Gary during the era of Black political power, has sworn in its first Black police chief,” the Crusader reports.

Merrillville was formed in 1971 during the height of Black political power in Gary. The historic 1967 election of Richard Gordon Hatcher as Gary’s first Black mayor led many white residents to flee south. Most of the retail and bank establishments relocated from downtown Gary and Hammond to Merrillville, as suburban malls and office complexes sprang up in the cornfields.
In 1971 white lawmakers passed legislation that exempted Lake County from a “buffer zone” law that prohibited cities to incorporate within three miles of large cities. The legislation allowed whites to incorporate Merrillville as their new city.
In 2017, at the 50th Anniversary at West Side Leadership Academic marking Hatcher’s historic election, Reverend Jesse Jackson joked that Hatcher should also be recognized as the founder of Merrillville.

Seemingly relevant, via Wikipedia:
“The Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana (formerly the Gary Post-Tribune) is a daily newspaper headquartered in Merrillville, Indiana, United States. It serves the Northwest Indiana region, and is owned by the Chicago Tribune Media Group.
“The paper was founded in 1907 as The Gary Weekly. It was established to serve steel industry residents.
“On September 7, 1908 the weekly became a daily and changed its name to the Gary Tribune. Its founder, J.R. and H.B. Snyder, purchased the Gary Evening Post from Gary mayor Thomas Knotts on March 9, 1910.
“In July 1921 the two papers were merged producing the Post-Tribune a weekday evening and weekend morning paper.
“In August 1966, the Snyder heirs sold the publication to Northwest Publications, Inc., a subsidiary of Ridder Publications. ‘Gary’ was dropped from the masthead to further ‘regionalize’ the Post-Tribune, although critics charged that it was an attempt to distance itself from the declining city.
“In 1974, the Post-Tribune became part of the Knight-Ridder chain of productions.
“Hollinger International (later the Sun-Times Media Group) took over the production on February 2, 1998. The Post-Tribune consolidated its printing with that of the Sun-Times in 2007, at which time it closed its printing plant on Broadway in Gary, ending more than 50 years of press runs there. It had moved its main editorial offices from Gary to neighboring Merrillville in 2000.
“In 2014, it was purchased by the Chicago Tribune Media Group.”
*
From the Northwest Indiana Times, which used to be the Hammond Times and eventually moved to Munster, in 1999:
“When informed of the decision by a Times reporter Tuesday, the director of the city’s economic development department described the Gary Post-Tribune’s move as ‘mind-boggling’ and said the company is moving out just as a downtown revitalization project is hitting its stride.

“Naturally, we are disappointed that (the Gary Post-Tribune) is moving in that direction,” said Gary Economic Development Department Director Ben Clement. “I really wish they had come to the table and consulted with us. Perhaps we could have looked at helping them with whatever expansion needs they had. Perhaps we could have discussed the development of the downtown area.”
Gary Post-Tribune executives also failed to notify their partners in the Gary Chamber of Commerce of their plans to relocate a substantial portion of their business outside the city, said Jeffrey Williams, executive director of the chamber.

Now imagine if Gary was a declining white city due to black flight and Merrillville had become a prosperous black enclave. Do you think the Post-Tribune would have been moved to Merrillville?
*
“Former Gary Post-Tribune Publisher Scott Bosley said the move to Merrillville may help the newspaper attract employees who otherwise would have been reluctant to work in downtown Gary.”
–
Bank Shot
“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is citing Chicago as a ‘hotbed’ of past fraudulent actions by Fifth Third Bank employees,” Crain’s reports.
“The agency is making the charge as part of its push against the bank’s effort to move the CFPB’s lawsuit to federal court in Fifth Third’s home city of Cincinnati rather than Chicago.
“In recently filed court documents, the CFPB provided data showing that Chicago consumers bore the brunt of workers who established fictitious accounts and took other actions that resulted in inappropriate fees but helped the employees meet internal sales goals.

“For the better part of a decade, Fifth Third Bank has opened deposit and credit-card accounts, established lines of credit, and activated online-banking services for consumers without the consumers’ knowledge or consent,” the CFPB wrote in a May 22 brief. “Unfortunately for Chicagoans, Fifth Third’s unlawful acts and practices were more prevalent in this district than elsewhere; Chicago has been a hotbed of unscrupulous conduct by Fifth Third’s employees – conduct that the bank caused with its toxic sales culture and failed to timely and adequately address.”

Atop Fifth Third’s website right now:
Screen Shot 2020-06-10 at 1.03.46 PM.png
–
Alternate Summer 2020


–
New on the Beachwood . . .
“#ICantBreathe”
A new song from Korporate Bidness w/J. Writes and Gee Gray.
*
An ANTIFA American Hero
“Martin Gugino is not the 82nd Airborne landing at Normandy, but he serves the related moral principle. That encounter in Buffalo was a precise re-enactment of what letting fascists run the world looks like.”
*
BLM And The Point Of Jonathan Pie
Or, Defund TV News.
*
White Parents Should Have ‘The Talk’ With Their Kids, Too
“Lessons about police violence, Constitutional rights and white privilege should not be subjects only discussed in black homes.”
*
What Being A White Sox Fan Taught Me
“Even today, as recently as last season, you can find a conversation on Yelp initiated by, ‘Is the White Sox Neighborhood Safe?'”
*
A Black Booklist Beyond Baldwin
‘A lot of the books I see going around, and the lists I see going around, are literally like all James Baldwin, which is totally fine, it is important to read an author who paved such a path in the black – and especially the black queer – community but it’s been awhile. It’s been awhile since then.’
*
The Fonz Is Dead & Franco Is Alive: News You Can’t Use
By the former defacto Third World Bus Accident Editor of the Evansville Courier.
*
Killer Elevators In The COVID Age
“Product offerings in the works include calling the elevator via cellphone, antiviral stickers for elevator buttons, lobby concierge-run elevators, express service for each elevator ride, ultraviolet-light HVAC purification systems and even elevator buttons that riders can activate with their feet, their voice or hand gestures.”
*
And Now, Your Hoffman Estates Bulls!
A proposal.
–
ChicagoReddit

Servers, how is being back at work? from r/chicago


–
ChicagoGram

View this post on Instagram

Just in: BEYOND HEAVEN: CHICAGO HOUSE PARTY FLYERS VOLUME II, FROM 1981-1992 As per publisher @almightyandinsanebooks about this second volume: “With the original out of stock, we were at a crossroads. But luck was on our side when Mario “Liv It Up” Luna dug up a long-forgotten cache of material, and from that we bring you Beyond Heaven: Volume II. Same format but with all new flyers documenting an extended window of history, from early “mobile discos” that reflect roots of the underground movement before the term “house” was even coined, to the emergence of a new generation of house DJs and artists in Chicago inspired by the pioneers of the genre. As with the original, this book reflects a mix of figures and parallel movements that were entangled with the world of house. From dance groups to party crews, alongside promoters, labels, and record stores, both well established and lesser known–all are points of departure to good memories and/or further investigations into one of the greatest eras in the history of Chicago music, with a legacy that is profoundly influential to this day.” $20 USD, paperback 96 pages, full color 6 x 9 in | 16 x 23 cm Link in bio to order. Or come to get one in person when we open on Thursday! 😁 #Quimbys #quimbysbookstorechicago #quimbyschicago #housepartyflyers #almightyandinsanebooks #marioluna #mariolivitupluna #chicago #chicagohousemusic #chicagohouse #dj

A post shared by Quimbys Bookstore (@quimbysbookstore) on


–
ChicagoTube
Young Boy Protests Alone (Sort, Of, Not Really, But It’s A Really Good Thing) In South Shore.

–
BeachBook
Donald Trump Put A Fence Around The White House To Keep People Away. It Is Now Completely Covered In Protest Art.

*
Prominent Harvard Archaeologist Put On Leave Amid Sexual Harassment Allegations.

*
Quarantined Travel Photographer Creates Miniature “Outdoor” Scenes With Everyday Objects.

–
TweetWood
A sampling of the delight and disgust you can find @BeachwoodReport.


*


*


*


*


–
The Beachwood Yield My Time Line: Operators standing by.

Permalink

Posted on June 10, 2020