A group of Black ministers and community activists held a protest rally Friday outside the James R. Thompson Center over proposed legislation that they said could cause 3,000 state employees, many of them Black, to lose their jobs.
A group of Black ministers and community activists held a protest rally Friday outside the James R. Thompson Center over proposed legislation that they said could cause 3,000 state employees, many of them Black, to lose their jobs.
“We ask the members of the General Assembly to reject this audacious attempt to punish the citizens and hard working employees of the state of Illinois,” said the Rev. Marshall Hatch, a community activist and pastor of Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church on the West Side. “We also know a number of African-American and Latino workers will be adversely affected because they already represent a small percentage of state workers.”
House Bill 4450 went before an executive committee Tuesday in Springfield for further review. The proposed legislation, Officials and Employees Termination Act of 2009, is sponsored by eight state representatives including House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-22nd Dist.
If passed and signed by Gov. Pat Quinn, it would allow the governor to terminate the heads, assistant heads and deputy heads of executive state agencies who were nominated by the former Gov. Rod Blagojevich between January 11, 1999 and January 29, 2009.
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