Illinois AFL-CIO’s annual Labor Salutes Awards recognize lawmakers for their support of Organized Labor

By ROBERT KELLY
Correspondent

Springfield, IL  — The human rights activism and pro-Labor spirit of the late Metro East union leader Margaret Blackshere remains a driving force in today’s Labor Movement, said speakers at the Illinois AFL-CIO’s March 6 event honoring Labor-friendly Illinois state legislators.

“Margaret broke barriers for so many women,” said state Rep. Lisa Hernandez (D-Cicero). “When I say I wouldn’t be standing here except for her efforts and those of Organized Labor, I mean it.”

Hernandez was given the annual Margaret Blackshere Award for her work supporting unions during the Labor Salutes Awards event sponsored by the Illinois AFL-CIO. The annual event attracted almost 200 people. It was held at the Illinois State Library in Springfield.

Hernandez was chosen in 2023 as chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois. She is the first Latina woman to head a state Democratic Party. For that office, she was chosen to replace U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Matteson).

Gov. JB Pritzker had handpicked Hernandez to replace Kelly as state party chair. The governor said he believed Hernandez would be a more effective fund-raiser than Kelly had been.

“Illinois is the most Labor-friendly state in the country,” Hernandez said, in accepting her Blackshere Award. “I am proud to be leading that effort for our party. And we will not go back” to the old ways of doing business that hurt working people.”

‘LABOR HAS BEEN THE CENTER OF MY LIFE’
State Rep. Lance Yednock (D-Ottawa), and state Sen. Robert Peters (D-Chicago), also praised Blackshere when the two men accepted the other annual Illinois AFL-CIO awards,

Yednock said the awards might not exist were it not for Blackshere and other pioneers in the modern Labor Movement pushing for good pay and equal pay for equal work for all workers.

“Labor has been the center of my life,” he said. He is an operating engineer and previously served as a business agent and executive board member of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150.

Before being elected to the state House in 2018, Yednock worked 28 years as an equipment operator. He received this year’s Zeke Giorgi Award.

Labor Salutes began in 1994 when then Illinois AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Blackshere presented the first Zeke Giorgi Award to then state Rep. Jim McPike (D-Alton).

‘A SPECIAL STATE BECAUSE OF ORGANIZED LABOR’
State Sen. Robert Peters (13th District) said, “Illinois is a special state because of Organized Labor and the ground work done by Blackshere” and others.

“We have beaten proposed ‘right-to-work’ legislation and replaced it with a Workers’ Rights Act,” Peters said. “Illinois is moving in the opposite direction from the days of oppressing workers. And it’s working!”

Peters accepted this year’s Reuben Soderstrom Award. Peters is the state Senate Labor Committee chair.

Peters, Giorgi, Blackshere, and Soderstrom were each historic figures in the Illinois Labor Movement, and all have served as leaders of the Illinois AFL-CIO.

Blackshere served late in her teaching career as president of the Illinois AFL-CIO. She began her years of service in education and politics as a Kindergarten teacher in the city of Madison in Madison County, after earning her master’s degree in education at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE).

While attending SIUE, she served as a student trustee. Upon completing her studies she served as a full trustee of SIU when appointed by the governor. She soon saw the need for Madison teachers to have union representation during their contract negotiations, and she instigated an organizing drive that led to the Madison teachers joining the Illinois Federation of Teachers.

FIGHTING FOR EQUALITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
Blackshere also was involved in several organizations fighting for equality and social justice. She served on Illinois Women In Leadership and on a variety of boards, councils and coalitions, including United Way of Illinois, American Red Cross in Illinois, Chicago Council of Foreign Relations, Unemployment Insurance Advisory Board, the Alliance of Retired Americans Executive Board, the Illinois Women’s Institute for Leadership, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Advisory Council and the Board of Trustees of the Global Solidarity Center in Washington D.C.

She died at age 78 in 2019 of complications from Parkinson’s disease.

In an interview in 1994 with Illinois Issues magazine, Blackshere said she was proud that she had worked her way up through the ranks to become one of the state’s Labor leaders.

“It’s a real humbling kind of thing to think that this little school that I started out at could end up producing someone that people think of as somebody special,” Blackshere told the magazine.

She continued, “I often have said to my children and to young people I work with that two things have to happen if you want to get places: You have to work hard. But you also have to be lucky. If you don’t work hard, it won’t happen out of luck. But there are a lot of people who work very hard who don’t get the opportunities that I have had.

“As a mother and grandmother, I feel very comfortable seeking to improve what happens to women in this society without the expense of my sons’ success. I don’t want to do to men what happened to women. I just want them to move forward together.”