96 Comments - wordslinger - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 6:20 pm: No chance AFSCME will endorse or work for Quinn now, so he may lay off even more than he proposed before. Once you cross that line, what more do you have to lose? - Ricketts Field - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 6:25 pm: Fumigate first, then lay off. - Shore - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 6:30 pm: of course no quotes on whether we needed these people in the first place. Cut away! - grategul - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 6:34 pm: This Adm Needs to look into the Mirror and Observe what they have done the past 6 years!!!! Only made things worse They are the ones who supported good old Gov. Rod and Failed / 2 terms Now they want the Good State Employees to suffer Where were they when they approved these Large $$$$$ to State employees Contracts ONLY BUYING VOTES TO LOOK GOOD !!!! For The President Election They the Senators and Reps Are they Feeling any Pain and Agony NO !!!!!!!! VOTE THEM OUT ? VOTERS ” AND WAKE UP !!!!!! - Cindy Lou - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 6:35 pm: Shore, how do you know if you need a person in a certain position? When you have roughly 60 million going out in mandated overtime in DOC. - David - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 6:53 pm: Tomorrow I’ll be taking the second of 12 unpaid furlough days for fiscal 2010. I work for IDOT as a professional. The dozens of political appointees who were pushed into union positions at abnormally high salaries will not have to take any furlough days and will in fact receive excellent pay raises over the next three years. There is something terribly wrong with this state. - Shore - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 6:55 pm: overtime suggests hiring someone because you need them, that’s better than getting a 2nd body with a 2nd set of benefits and a 2nd salary. Government needs to ask what families and businesses asks-do we really need this, not does this sound good and make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I’d like to take Mrs.Shore to a fancy restraurant every night or take little shore to the best seats at cub games, doesn’t happen, because it’s not in the budget. Governments using other folks money should n’t get to play with different rules. Plus good ex-government workers will do well in the private sector. Bad ex-government workers, well what were they doing on the public payroll in the first place? - Cindy Lou - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 7:01 pm: Well, Shore, guess we can just disagree with manners here as we seem to come from different worlds. See, for me I like paying my house mortgage, property taxes and house insurance with what be be that lost 15% over eighteen months. I think you will also find that it would have been cheaper in the long run to hire some DOC in at starting wages then to pay much higher paid vets that overtime. - wordslinger - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 7:05 pm: We’ll see how everybody feels about employee cuts when they start letting prisoners out early — no jobs out there for those guys, either. - Johnny B - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 7:13 pm: At least we are so far not going to 12 hr shifts which might sound good to some( 3 days on 4 days off) and so on. An average employee in Corrections would work about 104 extra hours a year for the exact same pay. - Emily Booth - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 7:21 pm: Your argument is bizarre, Shore. We’re talking about mandated services, not going out for dinner. We’re talking about real working people. - Ricketts Field - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 7:53 pm: Shore, you must be a Cub Fan…living in a dream. LOL - chicago publius - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 8:22 pm: Check out the poorly written sentence: “By being unwilling to re-open the contract, we are now forced to proceed with the layoffs.” The flak who wrote this needs to go back to college and take Composition 101. - state employee - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 8:43 pm: What is the point of a contract if it is “re-opened” and butchered one year into its four year term. Go ahead and do layoffs, I welcome a break from the hellhole. Looking for another job and another state and/or country. Bye bye!!!! - Chi Gal - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 8:43 pm: Hynes definitely has the better writers at this point. This isn’t the first poorly written piece to come out of the guv’s office. Once again, very unprofessional. - state employee - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 8:50 pm: By the way, to let you all know how bad things are. I’m a Human Service Caseworker in Chicago. I now have over 1,100 cases. This is considered normal. Back when there were caseload standards, they were about 500. So we’re currently doing the work of 2 to 3 people each. We’re working with working poor, seniors, disabled folks, people with mental and physical disabilities sometimes severe. As caseworkers with this much work we are at risk with angry clients if we don’t provide timely benefits of food stamps, etc. Thanks State of IL politicians for putting me at risk! It’s a blatant attempt to make us want to leave our jobs so they don’t have to pay our pensions and salaries. Wake up people of IL. The 3% flat tax is 30-40 years outdated. We need a progressive tax like most other states (wealthy people pay 9-11% state income taxes in other large-population states). Wealthy people and corporations need to pay their fair share. This is immoral and shameful on the part of wealthy people, deluded people, and the politicians selling out for power. - Stumbling Forward - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 8:54 pm: Crippled economic state equeals crippled income to all state employees, hourly and salaried! State workers income should fluctuate with the budget conditions, they should all take a pay cut! Obviously all the creditials earned by state workers at college are useless. Hey I’ve got an idea, lets get some more overpaid college grads to demand high pay for their failing economic state. NO NEW REVENUE! NO NEW TAXES! - state employee - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 8:59 pm: SF, Huh??? Are you Quinn’s speechwriter? - Louis Howe - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 9:01 pm: Quinn claims to stand up for taxpayers, so let’s see if he does it. Recent AFSCME contracts are excessive and the current work rules make employee time and benefit abuse rampant throughout state government. Simply exposing these abuses coupled with his efforts to remedy it would generate public support for his efforts. - Stumbling Forward - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 9:07 pm: I don’t feel a bit sorry for state workers. Their unappreciative of what they have, they couldn’t even take a cut in pay to save their fellow employees from being laid off. Just to self assured of their need to society. Can’t see the forest for the trees-the state is going broke! - scoot - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 9:13 pm: I hope the Guv holds his ground in this one! - Ghost in the Darkness - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 9:16 pm: Thank you AFSCME! There is no way we should open the contract. They beat us out of 2 raises in the last two contracts. The overtime is nuts but Quinn thinks that working people overtime will help his budget deficit then he is NUTS! It will add to the corrections budget and every other budget. Guess not balancing the budget on the backs of workers is out and on our shoulders is in. Also raising taxes on soda, candy etc. just drove people across the sate lines. Cut taxes on gas, smokes, liquor and draw the surrounding states to Illinois. But as we all know Chicago runs this state. - Mike an Ike - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 9:36 pm: Why should it matter come election time these lifetime Democrats who run the unions will say vote Democrat. - DuPage Dan - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 9:46 pm: I’ve said it before - raise taxes and you hurt the economy which results in lower revenues. However, without new revenue sources the state is in one hell of a fiscal mess. It is horrific. Not a crisis made by state employees. Made by cowardly and corrupt politicians. Let’s keep our eyes on the enemy. BTW, state employees are humans, too, despite what Shore, Stumbling Forward and others may believe. - Fed Up State Employee - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 9:51 pm: Stumbling — if you had read the post, you would know that: “Leaders of the state’s largest union of public service workers, AFSCME Council 31, including more than 75 leaders from every AFSCME local union representing Illinois state employees, met today in Springfield with representatives of Governor Pat Quinn and his Department of Central Management Services (CMS).” I don’t see anywhere in that post that “state workers” would not take a cut in pay. A very small minority of leaders stated “We simply don’t believe our members can afford that, and we don’t think it’s fair to expect them to bear such an unfair burden.” For all of you who have never been employed by the state or have no knowledge of what really goes on inside the agencies, please reserve your comments for something you do know about. - 4 percent - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 9:54 pm: This shows why Illinois needs Kirk Dillard as Governor. He is the ONLY candidate on either side of the aisle who has gubernatorial management experience and knows how to run and manage state government, treat people with respect, and actually LEAD this state. - Emily Booth - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 10:14 pm: The state is not broke. The state passed a $53 billion dollar budget. Broke is when you have no money. - Bookworm - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 10:15 pm: I am not union so I may be missing something here, but when AFSCME talks about an “11 to 15 percent pay cut over the next year and a half,” are they talking about the cancellation of planned raises, or actual pay cuts, taking place 6, 12, and 18 months from now? Or, are they talking about the effect of the proposed 12 furlough days (roughly equivalent to a 5 percent pay cut) combined with cancellation of raises currently included in the four-year contract? - Bookworm - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 10:44 pm: Never mind…someone over on sj-r.com broke it down like this: The proposed furlough days (which AFSCME refused to take) would have constituted a 4.7 percent pay cut. Another 3 percent would have come from the cancellation of raises scheduled under the current contract. That accounts for 7.7 percent. The other 3 to 7 percent of the “pay cut” isn’t clear but COULD have consisted of a 2 percent increase in employee pension contribution combined with an increase in the employee share of health insurance premiums. Does this sound plausible? And, now that the union has rejected these terms, does that mean they are all going to be dumped on the merit comp workers? - unnamed for now - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 10:45 pm: So Quinn can’t find the backbone to fire Blago appointees after promising a fumigation, so he’s going to take his frustrations out on rank and file state employees. Way to lead Governor! Maybe I shouldn’t worry. After all, he’ll probably change his mind tomorrow. - Cindy Lou - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 10:49 pm: –”BTW, state employees are humans, too, despite what Shore, Stumbling Forward and others may believe”.– Well, if you ask some we’re greedy leaches on society. Yet, it never fails to amaze me why I’m labeled greedy, yet it’s okay that citizens can’t be bothered with a tax increase that is claimed they can’t afford. Nor does it make any sense that the only place that can be found to be wasteful and surely mismanaged is frontline state workers. Does not matter, they will not guilt me on this. Oh, and I see Louis is again ranting over the contract, he just hates the fact that there are union contracts. And actually, if the state could not have what they wanted and exactly what they wanted they didn’t seem up to wanting to carry on. - unnamed for now - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 10:56 pm: ==And actually, if the state could not have what they wanted and exactly what they wanted they didn’t seem up to wanting to carry on.== Cindy Lou, I’ve read that sentence about 10 times now and still have no idea what you said! Can’t argue with the rest of your post though. - 365 Furlough days for me.... - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 10:57 pm: We received notifications today that 5 out of 7 lower-seniority employees are being laid off. Although my Agency made it through Round 1 with no layoffs we weren’t as lucky this time. I would have preferred 12 furlough days to the open-ended amount looming in my near future… - Citizen/Employee of State - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 11:12 pm: I can only speak for my work unit. We are understaffed like everyone else is. We provide the HELP everyone DEMANDS, as we are not so nicely told “I pay your salary”. We pay taxes, too, and help out our not so fortunate citizens - without putting in for a “tax credit”. With that being said - when prisoners are released without a job, what type of problem is that going to create? You don’t have enough police, the people who take the calls for assistance, and you need HELP NOW - what will happen to you, your family, neighbor when you don’t get that help in a timely manner? Those of you who say lay us off, let us go - are you willing to give up your life for your ignorant rants? The state workers DIDN’T create this mess - the politicians, greedy companies, etcetera did. None of us deserve to be let go - unless we aren’t doing our job and/or break the law that we are to uphold. When this administration takes away all of our rights under the constituion of this country what are you naysayers going to do then? It’s coming. The sky IS falling. Again, I’m only speaking for my work area, and the one that we work closely with where I have knowledge of what is expected and done. God Bless America and PLEASE help us ALL. - Cindy Lou - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 11:34 pm: unnamed for now –”Cindy Lou, I’ve read that sentence about 10 times now and still have no idea what you said!”— Well, you are not the first person to tell me I can butcher the english language and have a habit of talking round about, and one likely does not need to tell you I can’t type worth a hoot and spell check seems a waste of my time, but yeah anyway… No, pretty simple, in a nutshell, cost saving ideas and even suggesting furloughs on a volunteer level did not seem to be of interest. Being told of layoffs no matter what and even if the proposal they wanted accepted had been accepted that even additional layoffs come by July, bottomline was if the state could not have it their way, seems there was to be no way. - El Conquistador - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 11:39 pm: There will be many more layoffs throughout the fiscal year and continuing through SFY11. There will be no revenue till at least CY11. Prepare yourself if you’re in a agency dependant upon GRF money. It begins… and yes, Quinn’s done. Next! - Afscme if I care - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 11:47 pm: No AFSCME folks asked my opinion as a member before playing hardball. I would have said to leave the contact alone but sign a side-deal for the furloughs, in exchange for some proof of good faith dealing. My section thought it would have been the fair thing to do to take the furlough days if the admin would belay the cuts; we’d all rather have a little less of something, than all of nothing. We were sympathetic to the “merit” comp brothers and sisters; we work along side them every day. If our donation of hours would have really helped them, I think we’d override our leaders and take that 12 days. But I don’t believe the governor’s people. Problem is, there is no history of CMS or the administrations running it ever really playing fair to the rank and file. Ever. Management never takes much of a beating in these deals, it is always the innocent and hard-working folks who do the actual work that get shafted or laid off. Meanwhile, all those Blago-appointed holdovers who thought this was just a pit-stop on the way to a cush job in D.C. are STILL sitting pretty. Real workers will be out looking for work and living off food stamps, while those carpet-baggers sit around all day doing nothing but count their money. That galls the heck out of me. Unions are the defensive mechanism that engages when working people have taken too much (blank) for too (blank) long. Had the workers not been abused so long the union would not have seen the boom in membership they enjoy. This administration, like all others, came out not with a handshake, but a closed fist, unwilling to *really* deal except under threats. The considerable goodwill Pat commanded immediately after taking over from Blago has been completely squandered on threats, flip-flop statements and promises made, then taken back, by his team. Pat had the chance to really have the union on the governor’s side in a way unheard of in a generation. His team really fumbled the ball. Practically handed it to Hynes. This decision is going to hurt a lot of good people that didn’t deserve it. But in the end, it is going to hurt Quinn and the state more. - the down stater - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 1:50 am: No they won’t get behind Quinn….but I’m sure behind the next Democrat in line. That’s just AFSCME ! Dillard isn’t the answer either. Why won’t thr so called rank-n-file take furloughs like the salary grade folks & help avoid a lot of things ? They stepped to the plate to save jobs. It’s either give a little help now or lose a lot later. September 30th is coming & I think they’re not playing on these cuts & lay-offs. - this voter will remember - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 5:35 am: These ‘layoffs’ should consist on laying off the least senior employees which would include the political appointees that bought their jobs. That should include all the newly hired Directors, Deputy Directors, jobs that have been newly created, jobs that have been filled after being vacant for more than 6 years, etc. - PalosParkBob - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 6:51 am: I’ve got to side with the state workers on this one, although I’m a little confused as to why they consider overtime “undesirable”. Most private sector workers out there are busting their tails and would be ecstatic to get as much OT as possible, even at straight time,not even the time and a half or double time given to union workers. If there is fault here, I have to lay it on the state legislators and adminstrators who negotiated this contract with AFCSME. Clearly, there should have been an “escape clause” in the contract where raises and increased benefit contributions could have been rescinded by the state if certain revenues weren’t available to fund them. I’ve long been an advocate for such a provision in all public labor contracts, including schools, but the unions would rather create a crisis than reasonably work through consequences of a contracting economy. State employees have little to complain about compared to the private sector suffering. The company for which I work just cut salaries 4% across the board and cut 401K contributions in half because they want earnings to be 30% of revenues instead of the very healthy 15% that we enjoy in this down cycle. No negotiation, No discussion. Just theft. It’s enough to make me want to become a union organizer! - PalosParkBob - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 7:00 am: State employee, I’m a little confused. You say you’re doing the work of 2 to 3 people now. Does that mean you’re working 80 to 120 hours per week? I suspect not. It’s more likely your’e putting in about the same work hours for the bigger case load, and just neglecting half to 2/3s of that load. With 1,100 cases you could spend about an hour with each about once every 9 months. at the 500 case level , you could visit about once every 5 months. Can you seriously say that once a year or twice a year visits really make a significant difference? - Macbeth - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 7:30 am: === Clearly, there should have been an “escape clause” in the contract where raises and increased benefit contributions could have been rescinded by the state if certain revenues weren’t available to fund them. === This would make any labor contract useless. The revenue targets for such an escape clause would be unreasonably high — and never be met. AFSCME’s right not to budge here. The contract was negotiated in good faith over many months of difficult negotiations. Neither side got exactly what they wanted in this particular contract, and it was touch-and-go for a long while until agreement was finally reached. This is as it should be. The fact that it was negotiated by a “previous administration” is moot. The state’s financial picture was just as dire then as it is now. - soccermom - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 7:39 am: I don’t understand - I thought the Governor was just asking AFSCME to forego its pay HIKES for this year and next. How does that translate into a pay CUT? Personally, I just took a 14 percent paycut when I lost my old job and found a new one at a lower rate –and was really, really happy not to be unemployed any more. I would have been really happy to stay at my old rate for the next year. I don’t call not getting a raise a pay cut. - Louis Howe - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 7:46 am: Cindy “No gilt” Lou….What is there about an $11 billion budget deficit that you don’t understand? Do you really believe in the mist of the “Great Recession” with unemployment projected to rise above 10% that taxpayers should face a 50% increase in their income taxes while AFSCME state employee continue to receive double digit pay increases? Gov. Quinn has asked for a shared sacrifice and all you can say is “I got a contract….give me the money.” Yeah, I call that greed. - wanker - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 7:48 am: Yeah, they can layoff 1,ooo useless desk jockeys,which there are plenty of. Nobody will notice the lack of sharpened pencils, which is what these people do all day. - Retired State Employee - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 7:52 am: It seems to me this discussion misses the point. I wouldn’t mind a $20/month dental insurance premium increase. I even think active state employees would make some concessions if there was a PLAN to get the state out of the major revenue short fall it faces. But these discussions only serve to distract us from the real problem. $12 million here, $100 million there and the state is still multiple billions behind. While it may be “fun” to bash state employees and treat them as the enemy, it is really our elected officials that have created this mess and don’t have the backbone to solve the problem. So go on all you want about employees, it serves the politicians well because it distracts you from the real problem. - state worker - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 7:58 am: In the total budget of 53 billion what would these cuts save? - springpatch87 - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 8:14 am: Are we forgetting about the lawsuit? As I understand it, if the lawsuit goes through Quinn will have to layoff all the temps and some contractuals first before Union….. what a mess! Anyone know how many temps and contractuals are out there? - Bill - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 8:25 am: ==take little shore to the best seats at cub games== That’s child abuse, Shore! If DCFS or whatever they call it now wasn’t so understaffed you would be in real troulbe. - Cassandra - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 8:29 am: I don’t think the governor is planning to lay off any child protection workers because of the fear of a reopening of the ACLU lawsuit of the 80’s. This assumes that caseloads meet the consent decree standards and national standards for accreditation, which I believe they do. So that’s a false threat by the Dems, made in pursuit of that regressive tax increase. DCFS should, however, consolidate and substantially replace its highly paid, highly politicized management ranks, which are not only excessively large but inept. The feds are set to fine DCFS (memories of Howe Developmental Center arise…) because Illinois’ repeat maltreatment rate exeeds the federal standard. That means that we taxpayers have to pay more money because the Blago hires who run the place can’t or won’t do their jobs. When your first priority is to appease the politicos who got you your six figure state sinecure, that’s understandable, but not acceptable. Time to fumigate over at DCFS, something Quinn seems inexplicably reluctant to do–at least with respect to the hacks. - Cindy Lou - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 8:30 am: Eh, Louis, I did not create that budget crisis nor was busting a contract wide open going to solve the crisis. I guess your idea of shared sacriface and mine are just different ideas. This ‘crisis’ should not mean open season to gut everything out of a contract that does not suit you. If the state is looking to save a few more pennies here and there they might wanna dig out the senority hire list and compare payroll to what should be current step level increases, there seems to be a few surprises on that end. And there is always a possible look at top heavy ran angencies that could stand to trim things up a bit. No neither will ’save the state and solve this crisis’, but busting wide to raid the union contract would not do that either. We’re squabbling over a few hundred million dollars and the ‘crisis’ is billions. - anon - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 8:32 am: I am a professional engineer with over 25 years with IDOT and am taking my 2nd furlough day. I dont understand all the angry comments directed at state employees by some on this board. Yes there are lazy workers with the state but having worked in private industry there are lazy workers there also. In the end state employees are the individuals that provide to the tax payers the services that we all pay for with our tax dollars. And the vast majority of state workers are not the problem. For the last 6 years I have not had a cost of living raise and have watched my standard of living decrease. But I carry on, doing what is required of me since I am being paid. I dont mind making some sacrifices to help out but in the end I know that the change needed to help our great state will not start with me taking 12 furlough days but has to start at the top. What is needed is shared sacrifice by all. No more political hirings, no more earmarks for legislators, tax moneys should only be used for the services that they are earmarked for and not money laundered through CMS for other pet projects. Term limits for all legislators and a sense of fairness when it comes to job positions, salaries and pensions. We need to completely seperate politics out of state goverment and provide the tax payers of Illinois the best services for the money that they spend. I know a pipe dream. Come on 5 more years. - dupage dan - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 8:50 am: Retired State Employee, You are hitting a major point here. Others have also clarified that it is the Union that is refusing to roll over and make concesssions, not the rank and file. I have little voice in the union. I would gladly agree to various concessions including increased health insurance premiums, higher co-pays on Rx and office visits as well as be willing to take lower “pay raises” (I am at the top of my grade and so only receive COLA increases) and, yes, furlough days. I have communicated this to the union thru my steward, as have many in our “shop”. What the union is doing may not be to my liking but I have little say in that. They are bargaining on behalf of all state employees, not just me. Current positions and statements that AFSCME are making should be considered as part of a strategy, not the beliefs or hopes of the rank and file. However, understanding that and not demonizing the evil, greedy, state employee takes some thought and consideration. Gratuitous bashing doesn’t take as many brain cells. - weshouldallbelike Inge - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 8:58 am: One can walk thru OIG at HFS and see big money management people reading the paper, visiting and generally not working. some just hired at less than one year ago as “exempt’. Why should I, a union worker in a much lower pay scale, take a furlough day to allow the fat cat do nothings but be in the in crowd to stay? - OneMan - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:01 am: Seeing all of these comments and the general bashing of state workers (full discloseure I breifly worked for the state in college as a university employee and have about $125 in the state university retirement fund)… I am reminded of something my dad once said. “remember everyone else is overpaid and underworked and you are always underpaid and overworked” - Lexi - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:05 am: Reading these comments - it seems that when someone like anon actually posts something that makes sense it is ignored. It gets really old hearing the “Cut the State Workers” refrain. Not because I am one, but because as has been said numberous times - THEY are not the ones that created the problem and are unwilling to address the problem. That would be our elected officials and the special interests. It sure would be nice to see the state ran with a thought as to what is best for the state as a whole and not as someone’s personal golden egg to be protected. But to quote anon - “I know a pipe dream” - both ways? - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:08 am: I would hope in the future tha state employees as a whole would no longer be painted with the outcomes of bad behavior by a few. State employee numbers have been reduced since 1993. Non-union employees provide undocumented non-reimbursed overtime, without union representation there are also no raises year after year. Non-political employees should receive at some point a thank you instead on these continued ill informed comments. Many of us are responsible for $100’s of millions of dollars in federal funding - you as Illinois citizens do need most all of us. Those you don’t will not be touched by any of this - VanillaMan - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:10 am: We’ve witnessed ten years of increasing governmental service demands, yet over the same ten years, the only employee expansion has been in political appointees, political contractors, and political friends paying $25,000 to get a job. These people are not needed, and should have been shown the door when their sugar daddy was impeached and removed from office. That is where the layoffs need to be made, not among those who are non-political and have been understaffed for the past ten years. The Governor and the General Assembly need to lead by example, shouldn’t they? Before a single layoff occur, we should be seeing our executive and legislative branches of government take the medicine they are prescribing for those they dictate. We wouldn’t be in the mess we are facing had they done their jobs. Their failures should have consequences - a 15% pay cut. If they were state employees, they would have been fired by now. Ten years of voting to expand government services without providing for revenue streams. Ten years of voting to expand government services without reforming state services in order to make them more efficient. This is Illinois’ Lost Decade. There are those citizens who are still thinking about state services pre-computer era. They are still imagining water coolers, paper pushers and typewriters. Research clearly indicates that the number of government workers per capita has plummeted throughout the US over the past twenty years. Illinois has one of the very lowest ration of government workers to citizens in the entire US. There is no waste there. The Blagojevich Administration promised a hiring freeze. That didn’t happen because reality demanded that someone do the jobs Illinoisans demanded. So the previous administration hired political contractors to work around. They also sold jobs, as we all discovered a while back. These jobs paid higher than the wages offered to salaried state workers. So, this is how I would suggest Quinn do this… 1.) Have a 15% across the board salary cut for Constitutional Office officials and their immediate offices. Have a 15% across the board salary cut for all of Illinois legislators and their staffs. 2.) Take a measurement of the cost saving. 3.) If more cuts are needed, end all state contracts providing public services and transfer those responsibilities to salaried state workers. 4.) If more cuts are needed, start laying off Blagojevich era appointees. 5.) If more cuts are needed, start laying off public workers in eras where funding has been cut. Quinn’s approach is obviously political and obviously wasteful. He takes an axe to do what it takes a scalpel to do. He is taking the “easy” way out, instead of working. He is responding, instead of leading. He is preaching, when he should be setting an example. Double for the losers sitting in the General Assembly. - Lexi - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:12 am: Well said VanillaMan - Hank - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:14 am: Relax, nothing has happened yet I hear Quinn coming to the podium now…flip flop, flip flop to announce a deadline to accept his plan or else, flip flop flip flop - PalosParkBob - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:31 am: Cindy Lou, your statement that: “This would make any labor contract useless. The revenue targets for such an escape clause would be unreasonably high — and never be met.” contradicts itself. The basis of negotiations would be to establish a fair share of revenue increases, if there are any, that will be devoted to increases in emplyee wages and benefits. Hammering out the right metrics to determine the “pool” of money for pay and benefits, rather than promises to provide campaign cash for raises and benefit increases for which funds aren’t available, should be the center of negotiations. The simple fact is that under the current system all the risk is put on the state and taxpayers in public labor contracts. It’s only fair that the risk be equally shared between the taxpayers and the workers. One final point. When I was in the USWA (second generation), we considered our union members as family. If there were problems with company revenues and job numbers, we tried to “share the pain” so that the younger generation with families weren’t thown under the bus so that senior members could get fat raises. Maybe that was just our local, but it made sense and built loyalty amongst the membership. Remember that those that are being thrown under the bus by senior AFCSME members won’t forget what you did to them. Don’t be surprised if they become some of the biggest “union rights” opponents out there after you let this happen to them, including advocates for taxing pensions and making retirees pay for health care. If you don’t take care of them, don’t expect them to take care of you! - Secret Square - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:32 am: Mostly good ideas, VM, except for one thing: most legislative staffers are not exactly wealthy. In fact pay in the legislative branch for rank and file staff people tends to be considerably lower than for parallel jobs in the executive branch. Do you really want to impose a 15 percent salary cut on a bunch of people who are making only $25,000 or $30,000 a year BEFORE going to steps 3, 4, and 5? I can understand the desire to punish the legislators themselves for not doing their jobs; but think before you take it out on their staffers. - Emily Booth - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:37 am: Hear hear Vanilla Man! Well said! - Fan of CapFax - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:38 am: Amen, Secret Square. - flat earth - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:41 am: Secret Square as a hole political hacks and the bosses they kiss up to start at that level of income where as most state employees have to work there way up to that level of pay after a decade or two and that is only thanks to AFSCME and Teamsters. - Anonymous Coward - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:43 am: Well said VM. “Occam’s Razor” is what he needs to start with.. - VanillaMan - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:46 am: …most legislative staffers are not exactly wealthy. In fact pay in the legislative branch for rank and file staff people tends to be considerably lower than for parallel jobs in the executive branch. Thanks - you are right. I was not clear here. I was referring to those political appointees who provide support for legislators, not salaried state workers who provide legislative support. Also, I don’t consider this punishment. I consider this pay for performance. Our state legislators have repeatedly failed Illinoisans regarding budgeting issues. Repeatedly. They need to personally feel the consequences of their inaction on this issue, and their actions as well. Finally, thank you for your feedback. I do not want to see those who work hard for their salaries face bankrupsy simply because our political leaders are spineless. - Cindy Lou - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:47 am: Whoah, Cindy Lou is not Macbeth, Palos, ya wanna address ‘quotes’ list them correctly. While Cindy says enouigh on her own, don’t read so fast you begin to merge us all into one ‘me’ - Secret Square - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 9:49 am: flat earth, the people I’m thinking of (with 20-30K salaries) ARE long term employees, not recent hires or “political hacks” working their way up the ladder. They aren’t union either. - VanillaMan - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:01 am: …the people I’m thinking of (with 20-30K salaries) ARE long term employees, not recent hires or “political hacks” working their way up the ladder. They aren’t union either. Why aren’t they? It is ridiculous to still have non-union legislative staffers. How can our legislators understand how government works when they do not deal with the conditions unions set up in order to perform state work? How can we expect legislators to respect unions when they do not work with union workers? This is 2009. There is no excuse for any legislators or political appointees to skate around the real world the rest of us live within. I understand those who oppose unions for various political reasons, but when those legislators come to Springfield, they need to be shown why unions are to be treated respectfully by working with union people. No wonder some of these political people treat their staffers like serfs. They don’t consider them professional! - dupage dan - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:01 am: I would be willing to sacrifice much if I saw the kind of clear, simple, actions being taken by the current regime that VM suggests. We are in this together. For better or worse, the state is providing certain services that are vital to its’ citizens. Punishing those who provide those services and rewarding those who are not (fumigate!) is not the answer. The fact that PatQ is not addressing these things in a fair way that takes into consideration the corruption of the past administration has convinced me that he is part of the problem and not fit to be the governor. - cassandra - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:02 am: I think Hank is right. We’re still early in the Quinn-AFSCME mock negotiation. Actually, if Quinn were serious, he would have started this process a lot earlier. How many layoff notices has he actually sent out? Very few, I hear. He’s hoping to put that tax increase through in October so that state bureaucrats will be once again rolling in billions-of-tax-dollars clover, for years to come. - Stoned Prophet - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:08 am: Some of us state employees have taken activism matters into our own hands. We have visited with legislators, wrote letters to newspapers (and had a few published), attended demonstrations, including the one in Springfield on June 23 of this year, circulated petitions, etc. We have done this on our own and with AFSCME, but we didn’t wait for our union’s lead. We were and are proactive. It’s a daunting task, and we keep losing. Last week a small group of us met with Rep. Deborah Mell in her Chicago office. She voted against an income tax increase that could have helped us. With the lack of revenue for our jobs, we have been put in an unpopular position in asking for a tax increase. We told her firsthand of our impossible caseload sizes and the harm that will come with layoffs and increasing caseload sizes. We also apprised her of the need to raise revenue to save state jobs and better-administer services. She and I share constituents. Her constituents are my public aid clients, in my office. She agreed to come to my office to observe our working conditions. To those of you who are state employees and who care about us, know that some of us rank-and-file employees are exercizing our political duties and fighting back as best as we could. We are not idly sitting by; we are fighting back. We are losing, but fighting back. We are not under the illusion that this will be easy. - Ill_will - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:11 am: VMan, you know legislators always protect themsselves first. (Not to go off topics but look at the US Congres/Senate and the Health care/pension plan they have). Their work is too important and can’t be burden with posting bidding for jobs, sick time, overtime etc. We had this same discussion during early summer. Didn’t we find that even if every State employee was laid off, there would still be a huge deficit. - wordslinger - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:17 am: Can you really be against, at the same time, higher taxes and state employee layoffs? With a $10 billion hole, thousands of layoffs were inevitable. It’s just a matter of whose ox is being gored. - VanillaMan - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:19 am: You are right. Twice. Maybe even more than that! What Illinoisans have to do is make sure that the jokers who dealt the losing hand, lose their pot. Remember when we were thinking that the GA wouldn’t return their salary increases last year? It was politics that make Jones cry “uncle”. Well, it has to be politics again. It is an election cycle. If one of our concerned legislators felt a wee bit unsure of their re-election next year - they should grab this opportunity to win re-election easily by taking a public stand and taking the cut. It would be a winning PR stunt, and an effective re-election statement. Voters are angry, and if they saw their representative or senator take a public stand like this - they would reconsider how much they hate them and re-elect them. Once these adulations come showering down on the first GA legislator for taking this kind of stand, the other lemmings would follow in order not be be seen as a elitist. Politics can do this. - Ill_will - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:23 am: WS: So long as it is not my ox! You are of cours correct IMHO. I would add one other part to your comment if you don’t mind: “Can you really be against, at the same time, higher taxes, state employee layoffs” and service cuts? - VanillaMan - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:29 am: Can you really be against, at the same time, higher taxes and state employee layoffs? Yes. Where are the costs here? In salaries? No. Laying off Illinois government workers in order to balance the state budget is like removing the instrument panel from your bloated SUV and claiming it will save on gas because of weight. We need to dump the SUV for the hybrid, not strip the SUV and expect it to perform better. - Capitol View - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:34 am: every contract with human services providers are “subject to appropriation”. And occasionally, we get clobbered - as may still happen worse in FY 10 and is likely in FY 11. Why are our contracts subject to appropriations yet union contracts are not? And FYI - many of our community based employees are union members, and they get laid off when the state underfunds us as they have done this year. - Ill_will - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:37 am: VM I like your analogy, it isclose to the mark. Except. Lay offs are the the only contractual instrument the State has when it come to employees if Unions won’t agree to anything else. BTW there are currently other contract(s) under negotiations. Before openning existing ones, the State aneed to address pending contracts. - neo state worker - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:43 am: Thanks you, anon, for hearing what was in my head and saying it so susinctly. - wordslinger - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:45 am: I’m not an employee basher but it was naive, to say the least, to think that there wouldn’t be large layoffs without new revenues. Politicians of all stripes (people, for that matter), when faced with difficult choices, are quite often going to make the ones they think will hurt them the least. They weren’t going to slash K-12 and public aid to save state jobs. That was a given. Is it fair? Beats me. Welcome to the NFL. - Stoned Prophet - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:48 am: I hope those of you who want to see us state workers laid off understand one thing. We are already severely understaffed. We are not idly sitting at desks sapping your tax dollars. We have ever-growing piles of unprocessed work that we are frantically trying to get a grip on. This creates a cycle of failure: more unprocessed work, more clients contacting us to find out about their pending work and taking up our time, which leads to more unprocessed work. The public sector economy is strange. In the private sector, layoffs are justified when there is less work. Less business=less profits and less need for employees. In the public sector, there is a backwardness to the formula. More work has not resulted in more employees. More work=less employees, even if the two are not correlated. Political expediency is ruling the day for Quinn. Quinn has no forethought of what will happen when there will be less workers and more work to process, which will very likely result in overtime and bigger state expenditures. As long as Quinn shows Republicans, voters and some Democrats that he is saving the state money, albeit superficially, then there is no motivation for him to get into the hard, realistic work of saving jobs and money. - dupage dan - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:49 am: -Ill_will, Lay us all off and dent the $11 billion dollar deficit by less than 1/2 billion. It is the straw man arguement. Demonize the lowly, union protected state employee and all problems will be solved. Now that PatQ is doing that I must conclude that he is not much different in style and substance than RodB. I won’t accuse PatQ of corruption since I don’t have that clear evidence but it seems that his populist leanings are not far removed from RodBs rantings. Can’t forget that PatQ wholeheartedly supported RodB for both terms despite mounting evidence of corruption. Thoughtful people who post here should be challenging those at the root of this horror as much as they demonize AFSCME and the rank and file. From the guv thru the legislative leaders down past the elected reps - they are the ones who craft and pass the laws and hand down the edicts that govern how the $ is raised and how it is spent. - Rufus - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:52 am: There 12,000 less state workers today than there was in 2002, the fat has been cut. The utter incompetence of the agencies senior administrators is beyond belief, very little has been accomplished during Blago’s tenure, but they sure have wasted one heck of lot of money. CMS is the worst example. This money-grubbing group has jacked up its rates for everything and then skims a portion off for the governor to use as he pleases. Attacking state employees is an easy thing to do, but they are not the problem. - Cindy Lou - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 10:55 am: Word, there would be layoffs and cuts even if the tax increase had taken place, that’s been a pretty given all along. There will be little to no call backs even if GA rides in Oct. or Jan. with a tax increase. - Tired of the mess... - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 11:20 am: Has anyone looked at the pork in the current spending plan/capital plan at either AFSCME or the Lt. Gov’s office? Howmuch money has been appropriated for park lights, statues, and other trivial (at this time). This should be done after revisiting the fumigation effort. The state is not broke, the state uses money foolishly and our legislators need two things to get this under control: common sense toward spending and the stones to face their constituents when they make fiscally responsible choices. - Stoned Prophet - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 11:33 am: Those I know who oppose tax increases say what Tired of the mess says: Why take more of my money to waste? You’ll just come back around and ask me for more again to waste when the state has a budget problem that you created. - Leatherneck - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 11:33 am: I assume the layoffs refer to the 2600 Quinn proposed back in July–or since AFSCME failed to come to agreement, could there be more (and if so, could Quinn also come after the budgets of the other constitutionals–e.g. SOS, Comptroller Hynes, AG). - Segatari - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 1:55 pm: >- Emily Booth - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 10:14 pm: The state is not broke. The state passed a $53 billion dollar budget. Broke is when you have no money. Ahem, you’re assuming they actually HAVE $53 billion. They don’t. - Ill_will - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 2:03 pm: Dupage D “Lay us all off and dent the $11 billion dollar deficit by less than 1/2 billion. It is the straw man arguement. Demonize the lowly, union protected state employee and all problems will be solved. ” I agree with you DD. Perhaps my post wasn’t clear. It seemed to me that once again, as in the budget discussions, quite a number of posters here were calling for mass lay offs to solve the problem. As was discussed and deliberated back then, even if all employees were laid off, it would not fix the mess we are in. To me it seemed that posters today have forgotten that point. I wanted to remind them of it. Nevertheless, if cuts have to be made and the Unions won’t agree, then lay offs are one of several options that must be utilized. Perhaps you have never heard a Union rep say: If you can’t afford to pay us, then lay us off”, I have. BTW, why would you use the term “lowly union employees”? - Macbeth - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 3:33 pm: I guess my previous post was deleted, but I continue to be amazed by the anger directed toward state employees. Ordinary state employees have *no* influence over anything — budget, policy, working conditions, etc. Why blame the employees? Because, I suspect, they’re easy, easy targets. *shrug* - Mary - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 4:30 pm: It would seem to me that anyone would take a cut in pay to avoid being unemployed. Can you really imagine what it would be like to not have a job and no prospect of finding another one. The union is not doing its members a favor, its really not. The contract was negotiated in good faith, but things change. The union should do everything in its power to assure continued employment for its members, even if it means a pay cut. Not backing down will be a disaster. Can’t everyone see that? - Ill_will - Friday, Sep 4, 09 @ 11:18 pm: Mary: Can’t everyone see that? 3 WORDS: Ask Henry Bayer. - notes1977 - Monday, Sep 7, 09 @ 11:58 am: i agree with Mary above me. but at work, i’m confronted by “old timers” who know they will be there regardless of what happens–they are more interested in their raises. it is me and other short timers that are going to suffer here. i say give that Quinn what he wants now to save jobs–but support his opponent come election time. - Lowly State Employee - Wednesday, Sep 16, 09 @ 11:50 pm: As being a “lowly state employee”, I can respect what AFSCME is trying to do. However the simple fact is that the state is going to place the burden on the easiest targets, union members. As having some experience, BAD, with my union, the membership never gets a say in what happens. Leadership never asks members what they think, they just react to what they want. Don’t place the blame on us “lowly state employees” for getting what we were allowed through negotiations. If you don’t like it, sorry for you. We earn our livings, through due process of contract negotiations. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.