Governor can't ignore contract
The governor of Illinois has great power, but he's not above the law.
Gov. Pat Quinn shook up 30,000 state employees a couple of weeks ago when he announced that he was blocking 2 percent pay raises required by their union contracts.
The general reaction to Quinn's announcement was surprise and then confusion.
Why, people wondered, was Quinn picking a fight with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees' union that played such an important role in putting him in office? Besides that, how did Quinn expect to get away with breaching a contractual agreement?
The backstory on the political angle remains the subject of speculation. But an independent arbitrator answered the second question this week when he issued an ruling that Quinn lacked the legal authority to block the pay raise. The arbitrator ordered the increase and any back pay be made within the next 30 days.
It's still not over. The Quinn administration promised to challenge the arbitrator's ruling in court. AFCSME already had filed a lawsuit against the state in addition to seeking an opinion from the arbitrator. So there will be plenty of litigation.
But from Quinn's perspective, this is looking like a loser.
Quinn said he cancelled the pay raises because the General Assembly has not appropriated enough money to cover the scheduled raises. He claimed he had no choice but to cancel the raises.
Unfortunately, Quinn has put himself in a box. He could have threatened to lay off employees in exchange for union concessions, but Quinn pledged last year, just before the November 2010 election, to not lay off any AFSCME members until July 1, 2012.
So he tied his own hands. Absent more money from the Legislature, Quinn will need some Houdini-like moves to extricate himself and the state from this problem of his own creation.
The state employees deferred pay raises to prevent layoffs with the understanding that the raises would be given at a predetermined date. They deferred up a 2% raise ( $30,000 salary = $600 per year = $50 per month ) to be paid at this time. Every state employee hater, and union hater wants to blame the employees. If your employer signed a contract to give you a 2% raise, but later asked you to put it off, and later flatly denied the raise; wouldn't you be angry? State, and university employees pay taxes same as everyone else. They have families to support. The republican, and the democrat legislators ( notice the small letters ) kicked the can down the road so they could spent $31,000,000,000.00 on Pork Barrel Projects in their districts. They put it on the governor ( notice the small letters ) to decide how he spends the insufficient amount they gave him. Yeah, sounds like the current Plan B in congress ( notice the small letters ). If you want to change state costs; drastically cut back on agencies management, and stop PORK BARREL ( notice the big letters ) spending by the legislators. I find it ironic that media like the Chicago Tribune; who went bankrupt, and stole their employees pensions; support Big Business Backers, and blame state employees for the theft of the state employees money.
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