Union lawsuit pushes Rauner to delay layoffs

Responding to legal action taken by AFSCME and other unions that represent state employees, Governor Bruce Rauner’s administration has indefinitely delayed the scheduled September 30 effective date of more than 150 layoffs in state government. Instead, the employees—including 103 AFSCME members—remain on the job while the court case proceeds.

Filed in St. Clair County, the case is the same one filed by AFSCME and other unions to ensure that state workers are paid on time and in full, even with no state budget plan in place. After winning a court order that protects paychecks, the unions have amended the lawsuit twice—first to block Rauner’s layoffs and again to seek to compel the Rauner Administration to resume paying all health insurance premiums and claims.

Our legal case says that collective bargaining agreements require the state to meet payroll and pay health costs and prevent it from laying off employees without a legitimate reason. The health care and layoff questions have not yet been scheduled for hearing. AFSCME has also filed grievances over the layoffs.

“While the governor has the right to initiate a layoff, there has to be a legitimate reason for doing so,” AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Roberta Lynch said. “But there is not a lack of work or a lack of funds. The governor can’t arbitrarily target layoffs in one area for lack of a budget over another.”

The layoff notices AFSCME received from the Rauner Administration in August cited a “lack of funds” as the reason for threatened job losses in the Department of Natural Resources (mostly associated with the Governor’s plan to close the Illinois State Museum sites and the Sparta World Shooting Complex), the Illinois Commerce Commission, the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Transportation, and the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. But state government in fact has funds—from taxes it collects every day, not to mention fees and federal grants that fund some of the positions, among other sources. And because there is a court order that employees get paid, the state has the clear authorization to spend those funds.

Most of these layoffs stem from Governor Rauner's rush to shutter the Illinois State Museum sites, destroying a vital resource for learning and the preservation of cultural heritage and putting professional museum curators, librarians and support staff in the unemployment lines. Other layoffs would throw out of work men and women involved with nuclear safety, tourism, recycling and overseeing public utilities. Rauner has also threatened to close the Hardin County Work Camp, which could result in more layoffs.

"Instead of holding hostage the public services Illinois residents rely on and eliminating jobs of public service workers who provide them,” Lynch said, “the Governor should drop his extreme political agenda that would hurt the middle class and work with legislators to pass a budget that prevents these cuts."