Some employees at the Chicago Board of Elections say they can’t catch a break.
They say they are overworked and underpaid. And an effort this summer to form a union has been met with stiff resistance by the Election Board’s lawyers.
A union organizer spoke Tuesday at a Chicago Board of Elections meeting about the “legal holding pattern” they find themselves in.
“Sadly, the board has responded [to the unionizing effort] by filing frivolous objections, withholding crucial overtime pay and creating an atmosphere of fear and retaliation,” SEIU Local 73 organizer Nicole Deming told the board.
Low pay is the biggest concern for Geneva Morris, a clerk at the Board of Elections, where she’s worked for over 20 years. Morris and another employee said their wage scale tops out in the mid-$60,000.
“There are people who came before me. To see people work hard and their pensions look like pennies — you can barely live on it,” Morris told the Sun-Times during a break from an election judges class she was teaching.
Board of Elections Director of Communications Max Bever, in an email, said: “This is pending litigation with outside counsel and I cannot provide comment at this time.”
The unionizing campaign began in July when 55 of the unit’s 80-some members signed union cards, Deming said. Since a petition to unionize was filed with the state’s labor board, SEIU alleges the Board of Elections has tied up the effort in court.
Deming said the board has filed six objections to the petition to organize. One objection is that unionizing would break an employee prohibition of political activity, which Deming said is not the case.
SEIU does endorse political candidates but no union dues are used to fund political activity, Deming said. SEIU 73 already represents employees of the Cook County Electoral Board, Deming said.
“It’s time for the board to acknowledge our union fairly,” Deming told the board. “We have had enough of these games. We insist that the commissioners begin negotiations with us promptly.”
Deming said they represent a variety of Board of Elections employees, including clerks, equipment specialists, community relations translators and information technology employees. The organizing campaign does not include any of the 5,888 election judges for the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Odel Sterling, a polling place investigator, said he still makes a yearly salary in the mid-60,000 range.
“I’ve been here 36 years,” he told the Sun-Times. “That don’t add up.”
He said staff are often overworked, and that he once worked four months in a row, seven days a week. He said he can count on his hands how often he’s gotten off on the holidays of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Presidents Day, which fall within the local election season.
The Chicago Board of Elections is chaired by Marisel A. Hernandez, who also works as a partner at the law firm Jacobs Burns Orlove & Hernandez, which represents public and private sector labor unions. Her employee bio says she worked at the National Labor Relations Board in New York and Chicago and at the Chicago office of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission prior to joining the firm in 1988.
In other news at the board meeting, officials said more than 260,000 vote-by-mail ballots will be sent starting Thursday. Early voting begins Oct. 3 at the downtown Supersite at 191 N. Clark St. and the Election Board’s offices at 69 W. Washington St.