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Illinois Legislature Passes Bill Creating Statewide Office of Public Defense
After more than a year of organizing, the Funded Advocacy and Independent Representation (FAIR) Act has passed the state legislature and is heading to the Governor’s desk! This legislation addresses the serious civil rights crisis caused by the state’s underfunding of public defense, leaving people who have been accused of crimes (especially rural, Black, and…
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UC Berkeley Labor Center confirms: “Gig drivers are getting a raw deal”
A first-of-its-kind analysis of the wages of app-based passenger and delivery drivers in Chicago reveals that gig drivers struggle to make ends meet, earning less than the city’s minimum wage. The report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center comes as rideshare drivers are increasing their demands for the City Council to urgently pass the Chicago…
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Illinois Legislature Passes Bill Creating Statewide Office of Public Defense
After more than a year of organizing, the Funded Advocacy and Independent Representation (FAIR) Act has passed the state legislature and is heading to the Governor’s desk! This legislation addresses the serious civil rights crisis caused by the state’s underfunding of public defense, leaving people who have been accused of crimes (especially rural, Black, and Brown folks) without quality legal…
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UC Berkeley Labor Center confirms: “Gig drivers are getting a raw deal”
A first-of-its-kind analysis of the wages of app-based passenger and delivery drivers in Chicago reveals that gig drivers struggle to make ends meet, earning less than the city’s minimum wage. The report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center comes as rideshare drivers are increasing their demands for the City Council to urgently pass the Chicago Rideshare Living Wage Ordinance, sponsored…
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Chicago rideshare drivers win $250k outreach fund in 2025 city budget
When the City Council approved Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2025 budget on Monday, the 85,000 people who drive for Uber and Lyft in Chicago got something they’ve been fighting for for years: funding to start a worker outreach program. This $250,000 will fund multilingual, multimodal workers’ rights education outreach to rideshare drivers and other gig workers. The program will include information…
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Illinois continues to close corporate tax loopholes
Illinois’ 2024 budget includes hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate tax loophole closures, including the retailer’s sales tax discount. Our work over the course of many years laid the groundwork for this win, and our allies in the Fund Our Futures coalition pushed it over the finish line in 2024. This will lead to hundreds of millions of dollars…
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Environmental Justice Town Halls
Our Environmental Justice team has launched a series of town halls with members and elected officials across Chicago and the suburbs in order to not just get our public transportation back to where it was before COVID caused cuts and disruptions but to win the progressive funding our state needs to build the world-class public transportation we deserve. The first…
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TPL helps pass the Healthcare Protection Act
With significant work from TPL as part of the Protect Our Care coalition, Illinois passed the Healthcare Protection Act! This win is an important step toward regulating health insurance corporations: it prevents them from requiring prior authorizations in an important set of mental health crises, it ends the use of “ghost networks” where insurers claim to have a long list…
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Pretrial Success Act passes in Illinois
The 2024 Illinois state budget includes the Pretrial Success Act, which will dramatically increase access to health and human services for people awaiting trial. Our coalition pushed hard to pass this, and it would never have succeeded if we hadn’t won our eight-year fight to pass the Pretrial Fairness Act in 2020.
Our Initiatives
We choose our fights by determining which issues matter most to our members and conducting strategic analyses to determine the power we need to build to win on those issues.
UPDATES
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Aurora Beacon-News
With $771 million budget gap for transit looming, suburban officials and activists still waiting on reform
As regional transit agencies sound the alarm about the fiscal cliff, suburban transit activists with The People’s Lobby are calling for better public transportation in areas with far fewer bus routes and train stations.