* Earlier today…

Today AFSCME members in Illinois state government are standing up and standing together for a fair contract for state workers.

It’s about fairness. It’s about respect. Because together, #WeMakeIllinoisWork pic.twitter.com/fSZRvo5sHl

— AFSCME Council 31 (@afscme31) April 17, 2023

* Coincidentally, Gov. Pritzker hosted an investor meeting in New York today ahead of a general obligation bond sale this Wednesday. During the Q&A, he was asked about how the state’s collective bargaining agreements would impact the budget. Pritzker deferred to his aide Andy Manar…

This will be a relatively short answer, but we’re in the middle of bargaining right now. So what we won’t have, I’m certain, is a situation like we had years ago in the state prior to Governor Pritzker being elected where there was an impasse that ended up being very costly. I think I would argue also that that has had an impact still, even today in terms of state employment. So, budgetary impact, lack of a collective bargaining agreement clearly has had an impact on the state even even years after the fact. So, we’re in the middle of that process today. And I would just report generally that there’s nothing out of the ordinary that’s happening at the moment. Parallel courses, the legislative session, which is scheduled to adjourn on May 19th. One question we typically get is how do those two things intersect? And, you know, today, I think it’s just very difficult to say. So that’s probably not the update you’re looking for. But obviously, I have to be constrained in terms of how we answer that question.

Please pardon all transcription errors.

* From AFSCME Council 31 back in January…

Veterans of state employment will remember former Gov. Bruce Rauner’s disrespect and vilification of public employees and their unions. Rauner’s enduring legacy will be his unwillingness to bargain with AFSCME members as he dragged out a contract fight for most of his 4-year term.

The years-long contract fight reached a boiling point when 81% of eligible AFSCME members in state government voted to authorize a strike for the first time in history. Due to a court order stymying Rauner’s game plan, state employees never ended up going out on strike, but the threat loomed large. […]

With the combination of federal stimulus dollars and inflation at a 40-year high, total state revenue has consistently exceeded expectations. In 2022, total revenue reached $50.3 billion. But it’s not expected to stay there—as the Federal Reserve tries to tame inflation and federal COVID dollars run dry, revenue could creep downward in coming years.

“With this revenue, there are a lot of competing interests who want to be prioritized for funding,” said Council 31 Director of Research and Employee Benefits Martha Merrill. “Just because the state is in a more stable position doesn’t mean that it wants to spend more money on employees. We’re still going to have to demand what we deserve like we do at every bargaining table.”

There’s another reason that the state’s finances are exceeding expectations: the staffing crisis. With so many vacant positions in state government, the state’s payroll is smaller than it has budgeted for.

* Manar also addressed hiring issues…

Today, the challenge, as the governor said, that the state faces is not unlike private employers. Our largest challenge is most acute today in the 24/7 facilities, correctional facilities, human service facilities, and that’s where we’ve concentrated our efforts first and foremost. So the answer is yes, we need more employees in state government, like most employers in the private sector today in the state, and we’ve done things that state government has never done before from ground level, community level town halls for recruiting, to identifying career pathways for state employees that could move up in terms of management roles. We’re modernizing our intake system for applications. That has been very successful. Matter of fact today, a year ago, our challenge was not enough applicants. Today, I would tell you we have a good number of applicants. Now it’s getting those applications processed. We’ve even, going back to the earlier question about relationship with the legislature, the administration has filed legislation to help streamline that process. And that’s a conglomeration of negotiations with unions and how state law directs our state departments to hire individuals. So, in short, the answer is, yes, we need more state employees, particularly in our 24/7 facilities, and the administration is focused first and foremost on those.

* Kinda off topic, but the governor also talked about how balancing the budget has been a net political plus for Democratic lawmakers…

Our legislature has really done a great job over the last few years of being aligned in our goal, to lift up our credit, to make sure that we’re doing the right things fiscally for the state. And I hope you pay attention to that as we head into the last part of the session here, because if we weren’t cooperating, if we were, you know, fighting one another, well, you’d be back in the situation we were in before I became governor. But also that the leaders in the legislature really do understand that this is how we make a real solid future […]

I should add, and maybe this should give you some confidence, that it’s been politically beneficial for the Democrats in the legislature to do the right thing for our fiscal future, because we won the elections in what was supposed to be a red wave year in November of 2022 in part because people who are going door to door running for the legislature were able to say, ‘We Democrats balanced the budget, we Democrats are the fiscally responsible party, we’re the ones who got credit upgrades for the state. Republicans voted against every one of those budgets.’ They’re in the Super minority. They couldn’t have stopped them. But the truth is that they didn’t vote for the balanced budgets that we got. And I think that’s just an important recognition. It’s one thing to have a governor who’s, I think, heading in the right direction for the state, but another thing for us all collectively to be working together to do the right things for the state. It’s a harder thing to do, but that’s something that we’ve done.