By: Mark Glennon*
Reggie Phillips (R-Charleston) is an Illinois House member and also a builder with a senior assisted living facility under construction near Charleston.
It was vandalized by unions. Phillips told the East Central Reporter, “Besides busting up all the equipment they could find, whoever did this made a point of spray painting things like “‘Trump’ with a ‘not’ circle over it and ‘Rauner’ with an ‘X’ over it,” Phillips said, adding that words like “union strong” and “rat” were also sprayed across the grounds.
Also horrible, the story has been ignored. Shame on the Illinois press for ignoring this crime.
Not by Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton), who knows the difference between right and wrong. Click this link to watch:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/29j8hv9xdaa6c1o/Ives%20on%20Reggie.mp4?dl=0
Meanwhile, Foxconn is reportedly focusing on Michigan to put a huge, 5,000-job manufacturing facility. Why would employers like that consider Illinois in the face of labor issues like this?
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints. Opinions expressed are his own.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
A family member had a small construction company. Union reps regularly came to job sites to check memnership and made the sons prove that they were indeed sons who weren’t required to be union members.
Ultimately, union wages broke him.
The vandalism occurred in Bethalto, IL (Madison County) on Friday April 14th or Saturday April 15, 2017 at the construction site for Holly Brook Assisted Living and Memory Care. The equipment belongs to Drake Excavating & Construction which is based in Charleston (Coles County). Here are 14 pictures of the damage: https://www.facebook.com/423563337764934/photos/pcb.1234074300047163/1234074190047174/?type=3&theater Here is an article including the sequence of events leading up tot he vandalism: http://www.edglentoday.com/articles/details/drake-construction-and-excavation-increases-reward-to-25000-for-information-leading-to-conviction-of-vandals-20322.cfm The reward has been increased to $25,000. The main contractor is one of State Representative Reggie Phillips’ companies (Unique Homes and Unique Properties) which are based in Charleston. The heavy equipment operators labor… Read more »
This is a form of domestic terrorism that union leaders and politicians supported by labor should denounce as robustly as they denounce about everything else. (Do a Google search on “Teamsters denounce” and you’ll get the idea.) Do you think the media who ignore this are intimidated or that they secretly support the activities described? Or are they worried about losing audience or having their articles and broadcasts denounced?
I think they probably fear boycotts, badmouthing, losing audience, and vandalism in some cases.
Those reporting on these events are represented by the Newspaper Guild. The Newspaper Guild is a subsidiary of the Communications Workers of America, which controls the distribution of those reports. CWA is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, which has its hands in everything. To answer your question…all of the above.