Rock Island County tent workers repair streetlights at strike site; UAW Local 281 member dies

Two white Davenport Electric trucks parked at the corner of Rock Island-Milan Parkway and Deere Drive in Milan under a burnt-out streetlight at 9 a.m. Thursday.

The electric workers started setting up their equipment against an empty strike site at one gate of the John Deere Parts Distribution Center. Snuffed-out burn barrels, blue and white UAW signs, and a white tent remained on the corner without any picketers.

Picket duties at the Milan center were suspended Wednesday morning, after Richard Rich, a Local 79 member, was struck and killed walking to the picket line Wednesday morning at the intersection, which is near the John Deere Parts Distribution Center in Milan.

Rich, 56, was crossing the Rock Island-Milan Parkway at Deere Drive when he was struck by a motorist, according to Milan police. He was pronounced dead at the scene. According to the UAW leadership, he was a 15-year employee of the Deere PDC.

Workers received a call yesterday from Rock Island County to fix the streetlights after the death of Rich, they said.

Streetlights at the intersection have been out since the start of the strike, according to union workers, who feel this may have contributed to decreased visibility in the dark at night and in the early morning. Multiple workers contacted the Milan Municipal Building since the start of the strike to report the outages.

According to an email obtained under an open records request, a Milan public official, whose name was redacted, submitted a streetlight repair request to MidAmerican Energy Company for the Rock Island-Milan Parkway and Deere Drive intersection.

In an email to the Quad-City Times on Thursday morning, Geoff Greenwood, media relations manager for MidAmerican Energy, said that the light reported to MidAmerican is owned or maintained by either “Illinois Department of Transportation or Rock Island County, and not MidAmerican Energy.”

“Your article referred to a responsive email from MidAmerican sent on October 15 to a person who submitted a streetlight repair request,” Greenwood said. “Please note that the email was an auto-response that does not determine whether the request involves a MidAmerican streetlight.”

When asked about sending workers to repair the light Thursday morning, a representative from the Rock Island County Highway Department said “the incident is under investigation and they have no comment at this time.”

Death of Local 281 member

A member of the UAW Local 281 died Wednesday, according to a post on the local’s Facebook page. The group is waiting for the family to release the obituary before they share it.

“The strike that is currently ongoing is a necessity to ensure our futures and our children's futures,” the post read. “But it also brings along a lot of stress and isolation for some people. In order to ensure that we come out of this whole it is imperative that we look out for each other.”

The post goes on to ask local members to take time to check in on one another to offer support throughout the strike.