Union Jobs, Yes!

When they learned last January that the Wisconsin Department of Corrections was going to dump its unionized uniform supplier and give the job to inmates, Bob McLinn and his fellow ACU members from all 20 of Council 24's corrections locals acted promptly. "That would have displaced 600 members of UNITE," says McLinn, a member of Local 18, referring to the uniform workers' union. "It's more important to us that our union sisters and brothers get to keep their jobs than get inmates employed."

A national steering committee member of ACU and a CO at the Waupun Correctional Institution, McLinn and other representatives of the council immediately met with the corrections director. "We educated him on the issue of union jobs," recalls McLinn. "And he readily agreed with us, so he cancelled his plans."

ACU members from all the locals thwarted a similar attempt a few years earlier, when the department wanted to employ inmates in the production of work gloves. "That would have thrown workers out on the streets," McLinn says. "We won't stand for that."