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Hiding the ball

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Illinois

* Once again the Chicago Tribune editorial board backs Gov. Bruce Rauner’s Turnaround Agenda without discussing any of the truly unpopular aspects of it…

Gov. Bruce Rauner wants local governments empowered to decide what topics will, or won’t, be subject to collective bargaining with their employees. To see why that admittedly dramatic proposal could help Chicago and its school system stave off financial disaster, return with us to … 1981.

How long ago was that? Well, Prince Charles married Diana, Princess of Wales. The U.S. encountered its first five known cases of AIDS. And Ronald Reagan entered the White House. Oh — 1981 also was the year that Chicago Public Schools agreed to pay not only the employer’s share of pension contributions, but 77 percent of its employees’ shares too. What could possibly go wrong with that?

Because labor negotiations start with the old contract as the bargaining basis for the new, CPS’ “pension pick-up” has endured for 34 years — even as the district’s finances imploded. Suggest that CPS should pay its share of pension costs and that teachers should pay theirs, as Mayor Rahm Emanuel and schools CEO Forrest Claypool have ventured, and you’re accused of “attacking teachers,” as the Chicago Teachers Union asserted Wednesday.

Chicago, the Chicago Public Schools and many other local governments and school districts in Illinois face a precarious financial situation. But they’re supposed to find their way out without revising the costly provisions of local government contracts that have survived generations of public officials. Gov. Bruce Rauner says, correctly, that copying these provisions from contract to contract creates a one-way ratchet by which decisions made decades ago cannot, in effect, be altered. Unions refuse.

* I think a good case can be made to take pension payments out of the collective bargaining process. It would be a good first step to then phasing out the state pickup of school employer pension payments. But, as you’ll recall, that pension issue is just one small part of the governor’s actual proposal…

Prohibited subjects of bargaining.  

(a) A public employer and a labor organization may not bargain over, and no collective bargaining agreement entered into, renewed, or extended on or after the effective date of  this amendatory Act of the 99th General Assembly may include,  provisions related to the following prohibited subjects of collective bargaining:  

(1) Employee pensions, including the impact or  implementation of changes to employee pensions, including   the Employee Consideration Pension Transition Program as  set forth in Section 30 of the Personnel Code.  

(2) Wages, including any form of compensation including salaries, overtime compensation, vacations,  holidays, and any fringe benefits, including the impact or  implementation of changes to the same; except nothing in  this Section 7.6 will prohibit the employer from electing  to bargain collectively over employer-provided health insurance.  

(3) Hours of work, including work schedules, shift  schedules, overtime hours, compensatory time, and lunch periods, including the impact or implementation of changes  to the same.  

(4) Matters of employee tenure, including the impact of  employee tenure or time in service on the employer’s  exercise of authority including, but not limited to, any  consideration the employer must give to the tenure of  employees adversely affected by the employer’s exercise of management’s right to conduct a layoff.

* While the Tribune editorial board is making it seem like the governor is a wholly reasonable and moderate man who is being unfairly blocked by an entirely unholy, unreasonable cabal of union thugs and “Democrat Party bosses,” the paper’s news side hasn’t bought in…

Gov. Bruce Rauner on Wednesday tried to use Chicago Public Schools’ money woes and lack of a new teacher contract as leverage, saying the state should not help the district pay for pension costs without also giving local governments across Illinois the ability to limit unions’ collective bargaining ability.

The first-year Republican governor’s criticism was directed at a proposal passed a day earlier by Senate Democrats that would freeze property taxes statewide and pick up roughly $200 million in CPS pension costs. Rauner said that while he supported the idea of a two-year tax freeze, he could not support the Senate measure because it doesn’t contain provisions to let towns and school districts determine what benefits were covered by collective bargaining.

* Not to mention that Rauner’s old pal and Tribune editorial board poster child Forrest Claypool doesn’t even want the legislation…

CPS CEO Forrest Claypool tried to distance himself shortly after from the governor’s remarks, issuing a statement that said “mixing labor issues” into the Senate proposal wouldn’t relieve the district’s financial pressures.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 11:41 am

Comments

Did think it strange when Rauner kept saying yesterday that Claypool asked for this. The Governor took one defined piece, and expanded it into his whole anti-union agenda for localities.

Comment by walker Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 11:46 am
Rich: Great pick up and headline.

Comment by walker Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 11:47 am
The Tribbies and most others forget that 200 towns
large and small said “no thanks” to all this “local control” TeamBungle offers…..we think that should count

Comment by Anonin' Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 11:48 am
@EditBoardChick - I am NOT ignoring anything, I’m paying attention to my direct deposit I get every two weeks. #Shill

@EditBoardChick - my job is to convince people Rauner is reasonable, even if it means forgoing my past “Statehouse” experience. Simple. #NeedToKnowBasis

@EditBoardChick - sure I read those covering Springfield, usually it’s just to figure out how I need to protect Rauner from them. #GotRaunersBack

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 11:50 am
They fail to mention that pension payments have been skipped altogether and that is the true reason for “crisis.” It is one that politicians have created by ignoring their duties and failing to uphold their promises to working families.

Comment by Aaron Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 11:50 am
Hiding the ball is SOP for the “transparent” Rauner administration and it’s minions.

Comment by Norseman Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 11:51 am
Sam Zell and his buddy Bruce, leading the folks in the ivory tower down the path to oblivion.

Comment by Wow Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 11:52 am
Schools payment of Employee portion of pensions was negotiated in lieu of salary increases, in many cases, back in the 70s. I was at the negotiating table in those days and remember well getting part of my pension paid rather than a salary increase because it was perceived to be exempted by the IRS. It is not a gift that the employer just decided to pay.

Comment by nobody Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 11:53 am
==CPS CEO Forrest Claypool tried to distance himself shortly after from the governor’s remarks==

There seems to be a trend of Rauner stealing portions of people’s ideas, mingling them with his own controversial ideas, and then announcing that the end product is the result of negotiating with “others”.

Im not sure in what setting that could be called negotiating.

Comment by Abe the Babe Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 11:56 am
Rich, the pension pick up is nothing more than framing an issue to get the public to support cutting teacher pay. When the teacher “picks up” the contribution that cuts their pay. Do you think the district will keep them whole by providing a corresponding 7% increase in salary?.?.? Don’t you see that? There is nothing sinister here and in fact it costs the districts less to give the raise because THEY DO NOT HAVE TO PAY MEDICAREE TAX on it. Its a bait and switch that you and other media types who have crappy pension plans have fallen for out of jealousy and misinformation.

Comment by Obamas Puppy Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 11:57 am
The governors explanation sounds like locals have the option to bargain on these items, or not, thus allowing them to screw over employees at will. Oops, i mean save money, to offset state cuts. But the language above says no local option–no bargaining on anything, except maybe dress code. Huh? Is the governor fibbing?

Comment by Langhorne Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 11:59 am
@ - nobody - Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 11:53 am:

Same thing with SERS payments of 4% which were phased out a few years back. So the question is what is being offered to have the pension costs again picked up by the teachers.
The prohibited subjects of bargaining, if adopted, would of course gut the union to the point of packing up their tents and going home.

Comment by Mouthy Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 12:02 pm
Everyone is missing the huge oortunity here. Prohibit the employer pickup but then require every effected employer to contribute its savings into the applicable pension fund. This would allow for a huge increase in pension funding without impacting taxpayers

Comment by Sue Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 12:32 pm
==Prohibit the employer pickup but then require every effected employer to contribute its savings into the applicable pension fund==

And you’ve gained what exactly? You want to prohibit it but you still want them to pay it. Got it.

Comment by Demoralized Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 12:48 pm
== And you’ve gained what exactly? You want to prohibit it but you still want them to pay it. ==

It would be a way to ensure the EMPLOYER portion, at least part of which has been skipped for years, gets paid.

Comment by RNUG Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 1:21 pm
The truth? The Truth? You can’t handle the truth!

Comment by Flynn's mom Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 1:24 pm
==It would be a way to ensure the EMPLOYER portion, at least part of which has been skipped for years, gets paid.==

Still not following the logic. It was already and employer expense. How does this change anything?

Comment by Demoralized Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 1:44 pm
Great job with this piece, Rich. Too bad other media outlets don’t go as in depth as you do.

The biggest problem I see with what the Governor does is he purports to offer changes to “help” certain constituencies when they didn’t ask for the help he is offering. Take the property tax freeze, for example. He claims that the bills put forward in the Senate and the House need to include collective bargaining and prevailing wage provisions in order to empower local governments to control spending. I haven’t seen many local government leaders who have reacted with much enthusiasm for these provisions. Most have said the cost savings either might provide are inconsequential.

If the Governor wants to provide meaningful property tax relief, jump on Senate President Cullerton’s idea to reform the school funding formula and let the unfunded mandates task force which the LTG chairs identify which mandates should be eliminated and, thus,reduce the cost of local government services.

Comment by GA Watcher Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 1:45 pm
GA Watcher, not only is Rauner wanting to “help” the locals deal with the effect of the freeze, I believe he’s also holding onto the idea of reducing local distribution monies. Eliminating collective bargaining and prevailing wage is Rauner’s idea of “helping” deal with that as well.

Comment by Norseman Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 1:58 pm
I will try to explain for those not understanding. If the employees all pay their own contribution and the state requires the employers to then pay the amounts the employers had been paying via the pickup- you just dramatically increased the funding

Comment by Sue Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 2:01 pm
==I will try to explain for those not understanding==

It’s ok Sue. You can call me out.

==If the employees all pay their own contribution ==

Got it. You left that part out originally. That’s why it didn’t make sense to me.

Comment by Demoralized Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 2:14 pm
Meh, Big Brain Bruce knows what side his bread is buttered. He may need an out some day, and Rauner and his crew can buy guys like him with pocket change.

Back in the day, when Zell ran the show, Lipinski resigned rather than get muscled to flog his schemes with Blago to dump the liability of Wrigley Field on the taxpayers.

Big Brain Bruce had no problem toeing the line, shutting down McCormick and later bringing in a Tiger Beat writer who thinks our current governor is just dreamy in every way.

Comment by Wordslinger Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 2:38 pm
I’m not sure that it is a wise long term move to bar any employee pension payments from collective bargaining. If the State were to pursue a change in pension benefit through a consideration of some sort, it may have to be done through collective bargaining for TRS and SURS systems (70% of the pension obligation). If the State passes through the cost of these systems to the local schools and universities there may be some interest in bargaining other compensation to help offset that.

There may be a way to bargain other compensation as consideration for a benefit reduction (even to Tier 2) should the State enable that choice in the pension code.

While I understand the bargaining process starts with the existing contract, nothing prohibits the local agency from proposing the employee pay the full share.

Comment by archimedes Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 2:45 pm
I wonder what Rauner hears when he opens his mouth? I wonder what he hears when others open theirs? Unbelievable.

Comment by Anon Thursday, Aug 6, 15 @ 3:13 pm