Dear Colleagues:

Let's Send a Holiday Basket to Hardin County!

Members of the Hardin County Education Association (HCEA), a wall-to-wall local in deep southeastern Illinois, have been on strike since March 4. Though all strikes are difficult, this one is especially so.

Background

HCEA is a small local but the issue at the heart of the strike couldn't be bigger. Teachers and ESPs walked out in large part because the board refuses to offer all ESPs insurance. Inequity is the biggest issue in Hardin County.

The Hardin County School Board appears focused on defeating the union. The board's strategist is St. Louis-based attorney Barney Mumford, who has been at the table for some of the most divisive bargaining IEA members have run into throughout the state.

A Holiday Basket for HCEA

I know many of you already made contributions to HCEA at the Representative Assembly, and I assure you those donations were greatly appreciated. However, this crisis has entered an even more serious stage.

Our colleagues are beginning a third week on strike with no bargaining scheduled until Thursday. There is nothing as terrifying than the loss of insurance. That is the threat the board is making right now.

I am asking you and the members of your local to take up another collection immediately.

Please ask the members of your local to contribute to a Holiday Basket for our Hardin County colleagues.

Direct all donations to:

Hardin County Education Association
Attn: Sally Cooley
P.O. Box 74
Elizabethtown, Il 62931

Have a good week. Whatever you can do to support our Hardin County colleagues will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much for all you do for the students and for each other.

Best wishes,