Arbitrator: Quinn can’t freeze out state workers on pay raises
BY DAVE MCKINNEY Springfield Bureau Chief July 19, 2011 10:44AM
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn
Updated: July 20, 2011 8:46AM
SPRINGFIELD — Bruce Springsteen may have gained 30,000 new fans in Illinois overnight, but don’t count Gov. Pat Quinn as one of them.
In a legal oddity, The Boss’ lyrics were cited in a ruling Tuesday that blocked Quinn from withholding 2-percent pay hikes to unionized workers on the state payroll.
Arbitrator Edwin Benn quoted Springsteen’s obscure 1992 song, “With Every Wish,” to dramatize how multi-year agreements between the state and its public-employee unions would be “dead” if Quinn were to prevail in his pay dispute with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31.
“Before you choose your wish, you better think first. With every wish, there comes a curse,” Benn quoted Springsteen as singing.
Thirty thousand union workers were to have gotten a 4-percent bump under terms of a four-year deal ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich struck with the union in 2008. But AFSCME and Quinn agreed to alter that deal last year so that half of that total increase would be paid on July 1 while the remaining 2 percent would be deferred until February 1, 2012.
In enacting a Fiscal 2012 budget, Quinn opted against funding the pay raises even though they are required contractually, blaming lawmakers for not appropriating enough funds to cover the increase’s $75 million cost.
“Under the mandatory, clear and simple terms of the negotiated language, the State must pay the 2% wage increase effective July 1, 2011. As a matter of contract, the State has no choice,” Benn said in his opinion.
The binding opinion that the Quinn administration vowed to appeal was met with elation from top union officials.
“Frontline state employees are out there every day doing the real work of state government and the Quinn administration, as their employer, should keep its commitments to them,” AFSCME executive director Henry Bayer said in a prepared statement.
“We have always said what’s at stake here is much more than a pay increase. This is a question of whether the fundamental right of working people to bargain collectively will be upheld in Illinois,” Bayer said.
The Quinn administration expressed its intent to appeal Benn’s decision affecting employees in 14 different state agencies to Cook County Circuit Court..
“Funding these raises would mean that these agencies would not be able to make payroll for the entire year, disrupting core services for the people of Illinois, including children, the elderly and those with special need,” Quinn spokesman Grant Klinzman said. “We will be appealing the arbitrator’s decision. As the arbitrator acknowledged, he was unable to consider Illinois law due to his limited powers,” he said.
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