Institute in State Journal-Register: State employee contract terms should be public

As we try to evaluate the deal that Gov. Pat Quinn reached with state employees, we have plenty of reasons to be skeptical about Quinn’s claim that health care changes in the contract will save the state $900 million

State Journal-Register published the following opinion piece by the Institute’s Director of Labor Policy, Paul Kersey:

Any salesman who won’t let you see a contract for a big purchase before you sign the dotted line is almost certainly ripping you off. The same goes with most collective bargaining agreements here in Illinois — because taxpayers aren’t allowed a seat at the table during contract negotiations.

As we try to evaluate the deal that Gov. Pat Quinn reached with state employees, we have plenty of reasons to be skeptical about Quinn’s claim that health care changes in the contract will save the state $900 million, or that the state will be able to afford the pay raises it is promising.

That’s because the public has yet to see a complete, authoritative version of the contract itself.

This might be the most important document that will come out of Springfield this year. Its terms will control close to $7.5 billion of state spending on employee wages and benefits during the next three years. And because state employee pensions are partly determined by their wages, this contract will affect the state’s broken pension system for decades to come.

But as of now, only the union and a handful of officials in the executive branch have a firm idea of what was agreed to. The rest of us have only secondhand information in the form of documents provided by — or leaked from — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

State Rep. Jeanne Ives, R-Wheaton, recently introduced legislation that would bring tentative contracts out into the open, requiring that they be posted on the Internet and accompanied by a public hearing before a contract is made final. Unfortunately that bill, House Bill 2689, was rejected twice recently by the House Government Administration Committee.

State Reps. Adam Brown, John Cabello, Fred Crespo, Monique Davis, Keith Farnham, Laura Fine, Jack Franks, Deborah Mell, Christian Mitchell, Michelle Mussman, Robert Pritchard, Wayne Rosenthal, Carol Sente, Kathleen Willis and Sam Yingling all indicated that they preferred to keep tentative union contracts secret by voting no.

These representatives and unions such as the Service Employees, IFT, IEA and AFSCME Council 31 that oppose more sunshine in bargaining must also think these contracts are bad deals for taxpayers. Honest brokers will take time to make sure you understand the terms of a contract before you sign — they aren’t afraid to let you know what is going on because they are offering a fair deal.

Keeping contracts out of the public eye does not prevent conflicts with unions; at best it only delays them. Union contracts are not like evidence in criminal investigations, nor are they purely internal matters. They are on the public record and once finalized they are subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.

The terms of a union contract will get out to the public eventually, and if a contract is one that the public cannot afford the public will learn the price tag in the worst possible way: with rising public debt, threats of tax increases and public services being cut. At that point, the union will have to make concessions and all the problems that were swept under the rug will have to be dealt with anyway.

It would be better for all involved, including government employees, if contract terms were revealed immediately. The General Assembly should act to ensure that the public can see tentative contracts and comment on them before they are signed.

After all, legislators shouldn’t ask Illinois taxpayers to buy a contract they’ve never seen.