DAILY CHRONICLE
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Female family and community members hit the NIU gridiron for a women’s clinic / B1
WEEKEND July 25, 2015 • $1.50
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Square dancing swings into town
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Group forms union at NIU
Support staff, others decry lack of raises By RHONDA GILLESPIE rgillespie@shawmedia.com
Photos by Monica Synett – msynett@shawmedia.com
Joyce Renfrew of Ottumwa, Iowa, is led through a turn by Jerry Albrecht of Madison, Wisc., while square dancing Thursday during the 32nd annual Illinois Square & Round Dance Convention at the Duke Ellington Ballroom at the Northern Illinois University Holmes Student Center in DeKalb.
Hundreds expected to attend weekend convention at NIU By ADAM POULISSE apoulisse@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Debbie Richmond was dressed to do-si-do Friday at Northern Illinois University’s Student Holmes Center. Her blue and white dress – including “the petty coat and bloomers” – were the traditional garb for square dancing, where participants listen to cues shouted by a caller and follow their direction. “It’s a lot of fun and a lot of laughs,” said Richmond, a Belvidere resident who picked up square dancing again about seven years ago after taking a hiatus. Richmond is just one of about 500 people expected to attend the 32nd Illinois Square & Round Dance Convention this weekend on the NIU campus. Registration is required to attend, but not to show up and watch the dancers. The event, hosted by the Metropolitan Chicago Association of Square Dancers, proves the dance is still a popular and ever-changing way to stay active. The convention kicked off Thursday evening with a trailin benefit dance for Fairdale and Rochelle. On Friday evening, featured caller Darryl Lipscomb from Mission, Texas, led the dancers through songs such as the 1960 tune “Rockin’ Robin” by Bobby Day and even newer songs such as
The 32nd annual Illinois Square & Round Dance Convention at the Duke Ellington Ballroom at the Northern Illinois University Holmes Student Center kicked off Thursday with a benefit for the tornado victims in Fairdale and Rochelle. “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke. The songs’ beats stayed, but Lipscomb’s calls replaced the lyrics while a dizzying array of dancers, mostly older, spun around the dance floor in circles of eight. Lipscomb said it takes three skills to be a good caller: entertainer, educator and puzzle-solving.
“You’ve got to really enjoy puzzle-solving, creating the puzzle for dancers and helping them solve it,” he said. The last time the convention came through DeKalb was 2007, but this year’s attendance is supposed to round up major bucks, according to the latest report from
the DeKalb County Convention and Visitors Bureau. DeKalb was an ideal place to host the convention again, according to Richard Sehnert, chairman of the Illinois Square Dance Convention.
See SQUARE DANCING, page A5
DeKALB – A group of 645 Northern Illinois University workers have signed petitions to unionize. The move follows what many in the group of clerical, paraprofessional, technical and administrative employees lament as years of working without pay increases. The workers are organizing the new union under AFSCME, which represents 450 other NIU employees and as many as 5,000 state university workers. The petitions were filed Wednesday with the state labor board, which will certify them. If NIU officials don’t object to the petitions, the new union could be set to start choosing its leadership and establishing its bargaining committee in the coming weeks. Workers such as Jennifer Jeffries say they have not gotten pay increases in years. Jeffries started at NIU in 2011 making $10.78 an hour – just more than $21,000 a year – as an office support staffer. Three months ago, she moved into a new position where she now gets $15.68 an hour – $30,576 annually. Along the way, Jeffries said, she was denied merit raises and says she’s only at her current rate because she changed positions. Merit pay offers bumps in pay for doing a good job in your position. “Forming ourselves as a union is at least an option to get us better pay,” Jeffries said. She also credits the unions for preserving her state pension. In May, the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the state’s 2013 pension overhaul calling the changes unconstitutional. Angie Dybas started in her new office administrator role July 1. The 10-year NIU employee is a supervisor in the Department of English, the fifth position she’s held at the university since she started working there. Dybas said taking different positions is the only way to get more money because the university does not offer cost-of-living or other increases. “I started here as extra help and just worked my way up. That was the only way I could get any money here,” said Dybas, who started out at $8.25 an hour. “I’ve been very concerned over the years that more and more things have been taken away from us. Our health insurance costs have gone up. We actually lose money when that happens, because we’re not getting raises. When they start increasing [the cost] of other things, that makes our paycheck go lower.” NIU spokesman Bradley Hoey said university officials are aware of the workers’ complaints about pay: wage rates compared to other state
See NIU, page A5
Mitsubishi Motors to end U.S. production By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER The Associated Press NORMAL – Mitsubishi Motors confirmed Friday that it plans to stop production at its only U.S. factory and sell the plant in central Illinois that has more than 1,200 workers. The Japanese automaker reviewed its global supply chain and decided it was necessary to end production at the plant and find a buyer, said Dan Irvin, the company’s North American spokesman.
The announcement came after Japanese media reported the automaker had decided to end production in the U.S. to focus on Asian markets. Irvin said Mitsubishi’s board will soon make a formal decision on what will happen to the plant in Normal, about 100 miles southwest of Chicago. Company officials hope to find a buyer that will maintain the factory’s employment. The president of UAW Local 2488, Rod DeVary, said workers were told Friday that the plant
will cease production on Nov. 30. Annual production at the plant, which makes the Outlander SUV, has fallen to 64,000 vehicles from more than 200,000 in 2002. The company sold only 82,000 vehicles in the U.S. last year – less than 1 percent of the total market. Japan’s leading business newspaper, the Nikkei, reported that Mitsubishi would be the first major Japanese automaker to end production in both the U.S. and Europe.
The company has built a plant in Thailand, bought one from Ford in the Philippines, and is building one in Indonesia. Illinois state Sen. Bill Brady, whose district includes Normal, said he and other state officials were already working on a plan to find another manufacturer to buy the AP photo factory. “We are going to do every- This photo shows a sign Friday outside the Mitsubishi Motors North thing we can to make sure peo- America plant in Normal. The company’s North American spokesman ple know that Mitsubishi no Dan Irvin said Friday that the Japanese automaker has completed a
See MITSUBISHI, page A5
review of its global supply chain and been informed it is “necessary” to end production and find a buyer for the plant.
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