Afternoon Briefing: Cook County prosecutors seek to unionize

Good afternoon, Chicago.

In the first major union drive to reach the office in decades, a group of assistant state’s attorneys have asked the office to voluntarily recognize a bargaining unit that would represent hundreds of government lawyers working for the country’s second largest prosecutor’s office.

A majority of Cook County assistant state’s attorneys in the proposed bargaining unit have signed union authorization cards with Teamsters Local 700, according to a letter sent to State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke. Representatives declined to say what percentage of attorneys signed cards. The prosecutors are motivated by a desire to improve wages and working conditions in a notoriously grueling job, union representatives said.

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Mourners gather in the 7600 block of South Lowe Avenue in Chicago on Feb. 10, 2025, for a balloon release and vigil in memory of 12-year-old Dalilah Batey, who was shot and killed Sunday night in Calumet Heights. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)

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Buttermilk, a breakfast and lunch restaurant at 1715 Freedom Drive in Naperville, has been temporarily closed by a Monday night kitchen fire.
Erin Hegarty / Naperville Sun

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