Unions, Faculty, Students Rally at UI For Workers’ Rights

University of Illinois students, faculty, and local high school students stepped away from the classroom to speak out on behalf of public employees in Wisconsin, Indiana, and other states.

About 250 carried signs on the Urbana campus quad to show their solidarity for collective bargaining rights and public education. Library and Information Science professor Susan Davis of the U of I's Campus Faculty Association said the events in Wisconsin this week were an attack on the right of people to act collectively to define their own interests.

"So for weeks, the Republicans framed their attack on the unions as a purely fiscal issue," she told the crowd. "But on Wednesday night, they admitted that the motive was not the budget. It was collective bargaining all along. It wasn't about money, it was about power."

Davis' words were met with cheers. Two University Laboratory High School students that play on the girls' soccer team say they're being threatened with a suspension and missing their first game. They say threats of those consequences kept about 30 of their classmates from attending. About five other students from Urbana High School attended the rally as well, including junior Julian Threlkeld.

"Unions workers work really hard at their jobs," Threlkeld said. "They deserve the rights. They deserve the priveleges. And the fact that the movement of collective bargaining has been taken away from them is totally wrong in my opinion."

Threkeld says he might get a detention because of his leaving school early, but says the cause was worth it. The majority of the crowd consisted of U of I students. The rally was led by the Graduate Employees Organization.