BELVIDERE, Ill. (CBS) — The year 2023 was big for labor – actors, pilots, delivery drivers, and maybe most of all, autoworkers.
By some accounts, no place in history has benefited more from a new contract between the Big Three auto companies and the United Auto Workers than Belvidere, Illinois – about an hour and a half northwest of Chicago. Belvidere is a place that went from being the biggest labor loser to the biggest winner.
Belvidere is the type of place where a humay answers the phone at City Hall. It’s the type of place where Mayor Clint Morris has a Holy Bible on his desk, the Lord is his Shepherd, and professional wrestler Ric Flair is his spirit animal.
Mayor Morris is an independent who emphasizes the hat didn’t take any outside money for his campaign. He agreed that this puts him on about an island of one in Illinois politics.
“And of course, with any money that anybody takes, there’s a certain amount of obligation,” said Morris, “and I don’t think anybody is a philanthropist that contacts elected officials, I don’t believe that.”