The union representing state workers is threatening to strike – demanding extravagant pay and benefits and refusing 40-hour work weeks before overtime kicks in. Illinoisans should be outraged.

Illinois law provides state workers a right to strike – but only if a strike is legal. State workers represented by AFSCME can go on strike only if the union and the state are at impasse in contract negotiations – and AFSCME claims they are not.

As an AFSCME strike looms on the horizon, many are questioning how a strike would affect state workers and Illinois residents. While a potential strike should have minimal impact on residents, AFSCME members have much more to lose.

The union representing Illinois state workers scheduled a strike authorization vote for sometime between Jan. 30 and Feb. 19 – and it could be the first AFSCME strike in state history.

Illinois’ state workers are the highest-paid in the nation when adjusting for cost of living.

AFSCME – the state’s largest government-worker union – spent two years pushing for contract provisions that would cost state taxpayers billions. Now that the union has lost before the state labor board, it has issued a “framework” for compromise. But that “framework” is merely a publicity stunt to make the union appear reasonable while union leaders threaten a strike to obtain contract provisions that burden state taxpayers.

Gov. Bruce Rauner’s agreement on a contract with the Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council for conservation police officers, as well as 19 other Illinois government-worker unions, demonstrates that it is AFSCME – and not the governor – that is standing in the way of a fair contract for Illinois’ largest group of state workers.

2016 is ending much the same way it began for Illinois taxpayers – with AFSCME costing the state millions of dollars as it stalls progress on a contract for state workers. We can expect more of the same in 2017, with union leadership doing all it can to thwart Gov. Bruce Rauner and the state’s labor board – including the possibility of a state worker strike.