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Union Workers Protest Quinn's Budget Cuts
A local union -- along with their counterparts across the state -- doesn't like Governor Pat Quinn's budget cuts.

Members of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 1274 picketed outside Henry Hill Correctional Center Thursday as part of the union's statewide day of action protesting the cuts. Local president Ed Andrews says cuts like those proposed to mental health services and the closure of two maximum security prisons in the state could surely have an effect on his prison -- which is already overcrowded.

Andrews tells WGIL most prisons statewide are already cramped as it is.

"Lincoln can't handle all the prisoners at Logan [Correctional Center]," Anderson said. "So, [Quinn] is going to put more prisoners...in the gyms. And that's just unsafe for us in any correctional facility, and the community."

Andrews says Hill currently has 1,900 inmates, when it was built for 750, and only 192 correctional officers, plus some office staff.

Andrews says Quinn relied on the unions to help get him elected, but isn't exactly returning the favor now.


(Union workers at Henry Hill Correctional Center take part in a statewide protest by AFSCME Thursday. WGIL News Story and Photo by Will Stevenson.)
03 17 12 by Newsroom
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