The Cook County Jail was placed on lockdown after 317 guards called in sick during Game 7 of the NBA Finals on June 19.
The governor’s office has asked the Illinois Labor Relations Board to allow the impasse proceedings between the state and AFSCME to go straight to the five-member labor board instead of first waiting for a decision from the administrative law judge.
Palatine-area Community Consolidated School District 15 posted its 10-year contract with its teachers union more than a month after it had been signed, ensuring that potentially harmful contract provisions can only come to light after it is too late for students, parents and taxpayers to do anything about it.
The Illinois House will attempt a fifth vote on an AFSCME arbitration bill designed to remove Gov. Bruce Rauner from the collective bargaining process.
Illinois AFSCME workers enjoy yearly wages of nearly $60,000 when adjusted for cost of living, in addition to Cadillac health care benefits. Most Illinois state workers will also get free health insurance when they retire, and career state retirees receive $1.6 million in pension benefits on average.
The state’s largest government-worker union has no strike fund, but refuses to agree to a contract taxpayers can afford.
Illinois House Democrats failed to muster the 71 votes needed to override Gov. Bruce Rauner’s veto of HB 580, which would have allowed government-worker unions to remove the governor from labor contract negotiations and replace him with a panel of unelected arbitrators.
Illinois government-worker unions demand pay that outstrips that of Illinois private-sector workers and propose numerous tax hikes to fund their contract demands.
AFSCME members lobbied for $3 billion in additional pay and benefits, showing their lack of concern for Illinois’ overburdened taxpayers.
The Illinois Federation of Teachers is the latest union to work out an agreement with the state.
Illinois state workers receive the highest wages of any state workers in the country, when adjusted for cost of living.
AFSCME promised to play nice at the negotiating table with Gov. Rauner, but it never intended to keep that promise. The union is doing everything it can to muscle the state’s taxpayers into an outside arbitration process that will practically guarantee that AFSCME’s unreasonable demands are met.
The testimony of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees before the Illinois Labor Relations Board and the union’s refusal to compromise on any contract provisions reveal that AFSCME and Gov. Bruce Rauner have reached impasse.