Transmittal Email Template
You can copy, paste, and modify this template to send to your local Illinois State Representative and Senator. You can find your specific lawmakers and their email addresses using the Illinois State Board of Elections Find My Elected Officials tool.
Subject: URGENT: Constituent Request for CTA Pension Reform – End the 14.795% Extortion
Dear Representative [Last Name] / Senator [Last Name],
My name is [Your Name], and I am a constituent living in your district at [Your Address]. I am writing to urgently request your sponsorship and support for an amendment to the Illinois Pension Code (40 ILCS 5/) to protect Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) workers from unsustainable payroll deductions.
Currently, active CTA employees are forced to pay an unprecedented 14.795% of their gross salary (13.795% for the pension fund and 1.0% for the Retiree Health Care Trust) into the retirement system. Over the last 20 years, these employee fees have skyrocketed by 400%. This is nearly double the contribution rate of almost any other public pension plan in Illinois, making it incredibly difficult for front-line transit workers to make ends meet in today’s economy.
Current workers are being financially squeezed to pay for the severe mismanagement of past generations. For decades, political appointees and executives awarded themselves early retirement packages, drew benefits while holding other government jobs, and relied on unrealistic 8.75% investment return projections that failed to materialize.
I urge you to introduce or co-sponsor legislation that accomplishes the following:
- Caps the maximum employee contribution at 9.0% of gross salary to bring CTA workers in line with standard public sector baselines.
- Quarantines and isolates the “bad debt” of past structural liabilities into a legacy fund so that active workers are only responsible for funding their own future benefits, not past administrative errors.
Our transit workers keep Chicago moving every single day under difficult conditions. We should not be penalized with predatory deduction rates to bail out decades of executive over-promises. I look forward to hearing your position on this critical labor and economic issue.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Phone Number]
[Your Email Address]
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