Well, thoughts have been flying back and forth for two days now since Rich posted about the Pontiac prison guards doing the informational picket about the furlough and budget during the legislative visit at the prison. Now I have a question back, especially for those who don’t work for the state. One thing for you to keep in your mind as you read this - I’ve worked in both the public and private sector, and feel I have a fair grasp on all sides.

Okay, here goes: Let’s say you work for a company that has a several billion dollar budget each year, and the chairman of the board doesn’t always make sense. You have been there a long time and are a dedicated employee with pretty good benefits and what you think is a stable work environment. Then your company starts to have some financial problems and the man in charge decides all the employees of the company (remember this is a private sector company) need to give something back, maybe take a few days off without pay, or better yet, come to work on the days they aren’t getting paid. You’ve already lost other long term employees to retirement and no one took their place, so you have extra work to do and no extra pay.

How would you feel? I’ve seen here people voicing opinions from both sides, but nobody addressing anything like this really. I’ve figuratively seen fingers pointed and somewhat outraged private sector people (Rs and Ds) speaking out against people who work for the state, but put the shoes on your feet and see how they feel.

If something isn’t done, and the gov and leaders in Springfield don’t address the budget shortfall, more than just employees are going to feel the hurt. People we serve, people who get services, the general public needing to contact those smaller agencies, they are the ones going to pay. There’s 6 weeks left until the end of the session and there’s no budget in sight. I, for one, don’t want to pay for another overtime session, but I also don’t want anyone who lives in Illinois to have to pay the price for lack of good services.