Court halts confiscation of “fair-share” fees

On Friday, April 10, a St. Clair County Circuit Court judge issued an Agreed Order requiring state agencies to immediately reinstate the transmission of “fair-share” fees deducted from employee paychecks.

The court order, issued by Associate Judge Christopher Kolker, is based on an agreement reached between the Rauner Administration and the affected labor unions. It requires the Administration to “remit fair share fees…pending the resolution of the case” and to transmit “the correct payroll information” regarding gross pay for affected employees to the Comptroller.

The order brings to a halt the Rauner Administration’s efforts to implement the governor’s Feb. 9 executive order forbidding state agencies from transmitting employee fair-share fees to the unions. Fair share fees are authorized by state law to ensure that bargaining unit employees who choose not to join the union pay a proportional share of the costs of the union representation from which they benefit.

In recent weeks, state agencies, acting under Rauner’s orders, had been cutting the gross pay of all fee-payers by the amount that would normally be deducted for fair share, and keeping that amount in the agencies’ own budgets.

AFSCME, the Illinois AFL-CIO, and 26 other unions have filed a lawsuit seeking to have the executive order overturned. Now all affected unions will continue to receive fees while that case is pending and will also receive any fees that have been withheld so far.

“We continue to believe that the governor’s executive order is meant to weaken the right of state employees to have effective union representation,” said Illinois AFL-CIO president Michael T. Carrigan. “We’re pleased that all fair share agreements will now be honored while our legal challenge is proceeding.”

AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Roberta Lynch said the court order builds on what the union is already doing. “We’re glad the fee confiscation has been halted,” Lynch said. “But we’re even more pleased that over 1,000 state employees didn’t wait for the court to act. Since the governor issued his executive order they’ve signed up to be full dues-paying union members – and more fee-payers are doing so every day.”