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* UPDATED x1 - Rauner administration responds * AFSCME explains Rauner’s overtime pay demand

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* AFSCME Council 31 is handing out a new flier to state workers to counter some of the statements made by the Rauner administration. This part was the most interesting to me. Click here for the full flier…

The end of overtime pay? What’s Rauner really up to with his plan to change overtime policy? His administration has informed employees that it plans to impose a new regimen in which the calculation of overtime will only count hours actually worked. What the specifics of the administration’s final offer make clear is that holidays, vacation days, and sick days will not count in that calculation: “Only actual hour worked above 40 will be at the overtime rate.”

In other words, if you’re out sick one day, you can be mandated to work 16 hours the next day, but you wont get paid overtime for those additional eight hours!

Worse, because Rauner’s “final offer” allows management to ignore overtime rotation procedures by picking who will be mandated to work overtime, you can be sure that employees in 24-hour facilities who have to use a sick day will be targeted to work overtime when they return. Managers will be making mandatory overtime assignments based on which employees took a sick or vacation day in a given week. [Emphasis in original]

I asked the governor’s office for a response at about 1:30. I’ll post it if they send one.

* Related…

* Berg: AFSCME’s egomania is betraying its members: The length and cost of negotiations thus far is already insulting to Illinoisans. And AFSCME has acted like a spoiled child at the bargaining table.

*** UPDATE *** From Catherine Kelly…

Hi, Rich:

AFSCME’s talk of mandatory overtime is a distraction and a blatantly misleading tactic to divert attention from the fact they currently do not have to work 40 hours a week to earn overtime. AFSCME should stop these games and stall tactics and work with us on implementing the contract.

Best,
ck

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:16 pm

Comments

This is a heck of a humdinger for folks working in corrections.

Comment by Anon Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:20 pm
They just replace “AFSCME” in that statement with anyone else they “negotiate” with.

Comment by Union dues Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:24 pm
That’s how it works in my world…. I work 40 before i get overtime. I’m failing to see the outrage here….

Comment by average joe Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:26 pm
Im sure every small business owner stands with AFSCME in this outrageous injustice!!!!! Whats next forcing workers to check their work email after 4:30? Ohhh the humanity!

Comment by Red Ranger Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:29 pm
Average Joe- you work 9-5 more or less? How long is your lunch break?

Comment by Honeybear Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:30 pm
It’s related article is another retread done by IPI. To summarize: “afscme bad, mahogany controls everything, praise Rauner.”

Comment by Fixer Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:30 pm
===That’s how it works in my world…. I work 40 before i get overtime. I’m failing to see the outrage here….===

Give the apples to apples comparison, then make that claim. Thanks.

Comment by Oswego Willy Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:33 pm
“mahogany controls everything?”

Looks like I’d better go buy BossMahogany.com

Comment by illini97 Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:33 pm
This is the standard required by the Fair Labor Standards Act. It doesn’t mean that they won’t get paid extra for those extra eight hours, just that it won’t be at time and a half until they reach 40 hours worked.

Comment by Confused Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:35 pm
===…every small business owner… ===

This make no sense.

“every person working in a small business, and not the owner”… maybe.

Next time, just say “taxpayer”, it’s shorter and the distain will be more direct.

Comment by Oswego Willy Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:35 pm
==The end of overtime pay? What’s Rauner really up to with his plan to change overtime policy? His administration has informed employees that it plans to impose a new regimen in which the calculation of overtime will only count hours actually worked. What the specifics of the administration’s final offer make clear is that holidays, vacation days, and sick days will not count in that calculation: “Only actual hour worked above 40 will be at the overtime rate.”==

Hmmm, I wonder what could have spurred that proposed change? Maybe stuff like this:

==In a scathing report issued Thursday, Illinois Auditor General William Holland said state prison workers may have been engaging in “shift swapping,” in which workers used sick time or personal time for their regular shift but then worked another shift at the overtime rate of pay later that same day.==

http://qctimes.com/news/local/government-and-politics/illinois-audit-hits-prison-guards-on-overtime/article_3e028754-3aa5-5cb1-acdd-47ef0614ee0b.html

Comment by so... Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:36 pm
==Average Joe- you work 9-5 more or less? How long is your lunch break?==

Again with he lunch break? Hardly anyone in the private sector has a paid lunch hour! None of the jobs I’ve had do

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:36 pm
If you are sick one day, under the proposed contract you can be mandated to work for 16 hours the next day and not see a single extra penny. You won’t have time to make alternate child care arrangements so the kids get dinner.

That’s the problem with that proposal. Right now what limits mandation abuse is that there is financial pain in the pocket book. Remove that and every state worker better be ready to give up evenings on a moments notice. And not just an extra hour here or there. They will legally be able to make you pull a double and then you need to still be in on time the next morning. Go home, try to catch some sleep, get up and do it again. And this especially hurts single parents.

Comment by Union proud Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:38 pm
If you’re at work for 8hours but have an hour for lunch then you are actually “working” just a 7hour workday or 35 hour work week according to Rauner. Thus Rauner proposes that your overtime would start only after you make up that 5 hours. See the trick he pulled? Afscme is detailing the other little jabs he would get in to idoc and 24hr facilities.

Comment by Honeybear Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:44 pm
Note that the author of the “AFSCME egomania” piece is with the Illinois Policy Institute.

Comment by Wednesday morning Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:44 pm
“This is the standard required by the Fair Labor Standards Act. It doesn’t mean that they won’t get paid extra for those extra eight hours, just that it won’t be at time and a half until they reach 40 hours worked.”

Not according to the governor’s proposal. For the first 40 hours you just get your base yearly salary divided by 24 regardless of whether it is only crammed into 2-3 days.

Comment by Union proud Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:47 pm
This isn’t ideal for the employee no doubt… but this isn’t some shocker to anyone in the private sector. If more work hours are needed, of course management would assign workers with less than 40 hours before someone with 40 at 67% of the cost. Still sounding out-of-touch, AFSCME. Sorry.

Comment by Robert the 1st Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:49 pm
Look, guys, I’m not completely insensitive to you and if I had the power I would offer you a better deal than you’re being offered now, but: these things may seem terrible to you given past contracts and practices, but if you continue to allow your selves to be trapped into these being the things you’re publicy fighting and being outraged by, you are so screwed nothing can help you.

Comment by Steve Schnorf Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:50 pm
===Whats next forcing workers to check their work email after 4:30?===

You don’t want folks at several of the public agencies checking their email from the personal cellphones, laptops, or computers. Especially over any random WiFi connection they might have.

Comment by Anon Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:51 pm
The state’s in serious financial trouble people. Anyone in the private sector sees all of this as very minor sacrifices.

Comment by Robert the 1st Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:51 pm
==Anyone in the private sector sees all of this as very minor sacrifices.==

Yes….because they aren’t the ones being asked to make the sacrifice…eh?

Comment by Under Influenced Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:55 pm
No, because they already have these standards. As do most public sector workers across the country. These type of perks should be addressed before more tax hikes are pushed through.

Comment by Robert the 1st Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:57 pm
In my experience, you could ask for ,say, Monday off and agree to work 10 hours a day Tuesday through Friday. It’s called flex time. The difference here is you will be required to burn a sick or vacation day and still work the 40 hours. I can be corrected if I read this wrong.

Comment by Casual observer Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 2:58 pm
They still will get sick and comp time to cover the hours missed during an absence. However, they won’t be able to use sick or comp time for a day and then try to claim overtime if they then go on to work more than 40 hours including those comp/sick hours.

Comment by Realist Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:01 pm
- Steve Schnorf - is on this…

With Rauner, the idea of winning the PR battle is far more difficult because he will frame the AFSCME demands to not only suit him, but to make him (Rauner) the hero for the “taxpayers”

This just in, Rauner doesn’t like you AFSCME, and if he can make you look awful to destroy you, and/or force a strike.

“Great!”

Comment by Oswego Willy Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:01 pm
Complete garbage, no one is going to have to work 16 hours after a sick day. You take sick time or vacation time for that day, work your other 4 days x 8 hours/day - done.

Comment by DGD Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:05 pm
IMO there’s 2 types of State employees with respect to OT. Prison guards, snow plow drivers, etc, who are told to work OT, and workers, mostly professional job titles, who to some extent decide on their own to work OT, by traveling to meetings, working in the field, etc.

Rauner’s proposal is unfair to the former. The latter could probably use some counterweight.

AFSCME seems to only portray the former in its responses.

Maybe a different standard for different bargaining units could be a compromise and better win the public’s support.

Comment by Sir Reel Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:16 pm
==If you’re at work for 8hours but have an hour for lunch then you are actually “working” just a 7hour workday or 35 hour work week according to Rauner==

Honeybear, I have to disagree withy your. You ARE actually only working 35 hours a week in your scenario. I come to work at leave at 4 with a 30 minute unpaid lunch. I work 37.5 hours a week (which includes 2 15 minute paid breaks), and that is what I get paid for. That is how it is in the private sector too. Squabbling about it just makes us look like crying babies.

Now, for corrections officers and others who cannot leave their work area at lunch and who routinely have to stop eating to work at a minutes notice - they get paid for lunch, which is appropriate.

DGD - you would be right, except for people who routinely end up working overtime, such as the corrections officers I mentioned. The rest of us would normally only work the rest of our work week. However, when a place has to be staffed and they are short-handed, they can require overtime and do almost every week.

Ck - I notice you didn’t deny the unions claim.

Comment by thoughts matter Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:18 pm
>If you are sick one day, under the proposed contract you can be mandated to work for 16 hours the next day and not see a single extra penny.

I didn’t read it that way. I thought it was saying you would get paid the 8 sick hours plus the 40 hours worked. The difference would be that you wouldn’t get any time and a half for that 8 hours worked outside your regular shift.

I agree with Schnorf. If that’s your public argument, most of the people I know (and admittedly that is lower-middle class in a rural community) would see that as typical and what they experience. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just don’t think that sways some of the people you want supporting you.

Comment by Earnest Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:19 pm
Honeybear—If you work 9-5 and take an hour for lunch, you WORKED 35 hours.

Do you not get that an employer pays you for actual WORKING hours. You do get paid for those two(at least 2) breaks each day.

Good grief!

Comment by Piece of Work Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:19 pm
AFSME: “Only actual hour worked above 40 will be at the overtime rate.”

I’m not understanding the problem here, this is AFSME once again being out of touch with what everyone else who doesn’t work for the State of Illinois has to deal with. No wonder talks are at an impasse, AFSME is is a completely different world.

Comment by Ahoy! Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:20 pm
Oh, for goodness sake. My typos are horrible
8AM-4AM, - 30 minutes unpaid lunch = 7.5 x 5 days = 37.5 actual paid work time.

Comment by thoughts matter Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:21 pm
Funny how ck doesn’t actually deny the claim. Kind of like how Batnick never came back yesterday to deny that the governor’s demand in the working local mandate working group was an end to local collective bargaining rights.

Comment by TominChicago Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:22 pm
That was a very detailed response from CK. I hope she and Rauner are enjoying Happy Hour with the Koch brothers.

Comment by Jc19pd2 Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:26 pm
Oh “ck”,

Your own ridiculousness didn’t answer the beef.

The response was “Get over it! Capitulate already”

I guess the Rauner Word Jumnle must need recalibrating(?)

“Thanks!”

Comment by Oswego Willy Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:29 pm
Please “work with us”, can’t you see that the top 1% (my very special interest group) will be better off if labor makes less. Right now we are focused on State workers, but my special interest group hates all labor. Love, BR

Comment by golfman-r Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:32 pm
Many state employees understand what goes on in the private sector worplace. Many have worked in the private sector. To be honest…there isn’t much difference as so many here and the IPI want to portray. I’ve seen my share of hard workers and loafers, ethical employees and cheaters, perks and drawbacks, etc. in both private and public workplaces. These rule changes would have implecations for some state employees and some modification to the proposal could be sought if there was negotiation but…Rauner. 5 people have left our place just this month…and we have less than 100. There will be overtime due to the significant shortage and brain drain that is occuring. The workload remains. Most employees here don’t want overtine b/c morale is at an all time low after a decade or more of constant bashing and scapegoating by multiple administrations.

Comment by Johnnie F. Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:34 pm
Should the public sector adopt all private sector practices and policies? Should the governor make 350x what the average state worker does? That’s the ratio for CEO’s in the private sector. Had Blago been in the private sector he would have been given a golden parachute to leave .
I wouldn’t hold the corporate world as a model. Its corruption, profligacy, and callousness are to be condemned not emulated.

Comment by Truthteller Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:36 pm
The week of Thanksgiving most are off on holiday Thursday and Friday… that seems mostly a universal for many similarly sized employers, but in this case they can mandate you to come in for Saturday and Sunday essentially trading away the benefit of ever having had the holiday. All holidays, personal days, or vacation days can simply be traded for the weekend.

You got a sick kid and are out Tuesday and Wednesday, you now may be working the entire weekend as a “make up day.” Real focus on the family type policy here.

Wasn’t there a documentary on this kind of thing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjJCdCXFslY

Beyond the veil of cost containment, this can be weaponized by selective application to those they wish to punish. Why would that possibly be a concern? /s

Overtime (compensated or not) on an occasional basis is a part of life, I think most adults accept this. However, chronic overtime to paper over understaffed facilities or bad management needs a counterweight. This is I think not a normal practice in the private section; however the prisons have been pulling doubles for far too long, no one should debate that, and that was when there was a financial disincentive. If there was no drive to mitigate or solve the problem before, why start now when the impetus is reduced? As Union Proud noted at 2:38, there is no disincentive. If that language sticks the usage and abuse will continue/increase, and it looks to spread in a mutated fashion outside of IDOC where rather than mandatory doubles they can just take the weekends.

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:36 pm
Every time AFSME speaks they help Rauners cause.

Comment by Sparky791 Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:38 pm
==but this isn’t some shocker to anyone in the private sector==

The communication was to state workers.

Comment by Arsenal Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:38 pm
I actually lean towards Rauner on this issue. There are too many abuses in the system right now. As an example, you’ve got Bridge Tenders in Joliet who sit in a tower all day and raise and lower a bridge a few times maximum during an 8 hour shift making 125K on average because it’s a 24 hour job (like prison guards) but their union contract requires anyone working Saturday and Sunday to be paid at 1.5X and 2X respectively. I’m not sure if those guys are AFSCME but that practice should be stopped immediately.

How is it that no one has assigned Saturday and Sunday shifts to be paid at a flat rate? I’m assuming at IDOC some people work Wednesday through Sunday and have scheduled days off on Monday/Tuesday. Just a terrible waste to the taxpayers especially since when they retire their pensions will be artificially bloated due to this overtime scheme. It’s a crime.

Comment by WhyOT? Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:41 pm
Common practice for Overtime in most workplaces. Afscme is worried do to their ongoing abuse of their sick time. Get a day, burn a day!

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:44 pm
This language is for those who mostly are held hostage at their jobs for sometimes more than 8 hours a day. In IDOC/IDJJ you report 15 minutes before your shift starts and then you are there and “on call” during the half hour you have to try to get to the lunch area and back to your work assignment, but you can not leave the facility grounds or go to your vehicle without special permission from your supervisor. So does the private sector person HAVE to stay at their worksite for lunch? So actually the state employee is “at” work usually eating somewhere near inmates or for the IDJJ eating with their assigned inmates. Isn’t this actually working? The state claims it is not and does not pay IDOC and considers them working 37.5 hours. This is why the discrepancies. It is in the way it is presented from one side or the other. Also facts matter. Notifying a person they are going to be mandated for the next 8 hours within minutes of that mandate is a common practice in many 24 hour facilities in Illinois. The use of earned benefit time is the problem and this practice has not always been the way it is now. In the 80’s it was bargained to be if you used your benefit time during the week that would count toward “hours worked”. So if we all want to go back into the 80’s perhaps we should start that conversation.

Comment by FirstTimer Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:45 pm
Rauner is not much of a governor, but AFSCME is very very bad at making its case. It’s almost comical how poorly they understand public relations.

Comment by DuPage Dave Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:49 pm
@Anonymous - Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:44 pm

“Afscme is worried do to their ongoing abuse of their sick time. Get a day, burn a day!” - if the employer suspect abuse of sick time they can place an employee on proof status. So either this your assertion is a canard, or its management failing to use the tools available to them to curtail the abuse.

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:50 pm
Wait until we get to the health insurance part. No matter how JT the workers’ “colleague” tries to lie by omission in videos, healthcare costs are going to rise drastically, to 40%.

If it’s not insurance premiums it will be deductibles and the lifting of cost caps.

Then of course there is subcontracting, where the governor will have workers bid for their jobs, without efficiency and economy to taxpayers.

Comment by Grandson of Man Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 3:52 pm
Wouldn’t a simpler solution be to hire more people to replace the people who leave, and to ensure that you have enough staff so that you don’t have to pay anyone overtime?

Comment by Delimma Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 4:01 pm
People in these private sector jobs, why the envy? If you are contractually told 10 yrs ago, 15,1 whatever you get OT pay it’s impossible to change the environment. I can’t imagine ever doing OT now, as a SPSA I did it because I have a work ethics but when an employer starts treating an employee as if they don’t trust you, doesn’t give you supplies, resources so you buy your own stuff,and the reward is OT and nothing else the man is simply trying to break the system. Without longterm workers you got no pension because if I’m a new employee I would leave and take my pension contributions (holding up T1) and walk because why stay, no raise,more cost,no training, no supplies, everyday a new insult truly I believe all this stuff is noise to cover up the end goal. I mean contractual workers don’t pay into a pension fund.

Comment by Ex Spsa Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 4:02 pm
“AFSCME should stop these games and stall tactics and work with us on implementing the contract.”

Rauner is trying to slash employees’ incomes and wants them to grab the hilt of the sword and push it in themselves.

Just like he’s doing with Democrats in budget negotiations. It was great to see Rep. Welch reject this on “Chicago Tonight.”

Comment by Grandson of Man Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 4:07 pm
Firstimer, when you’re explaining like that you’re losing. Your public fight on this has to be simple, non technical, repeated hammering of messages on issues where you actually are clearly in the right in the public’s opinion. Example, no one’s health care costs should go from x00 a year to y00 a year, or should double from midnight June 30 to 1am July 1

Comment by Steve Schnorf Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 4:12 pm
To the update:

Hey ck, how about giving the same advice to your boss that he should stop these games and stall tactics and work with AFSCME on implementing the contract.

He also needs to do the same thing and present a budget!

There fixed it!

Comment by ILGOV2018 Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 4:12 pm
We have twice as many billionaires now as we did before the Great Depression II.
So clearly we can’t afford to pay people a decent wage.
What we need now is to tear everyone’s wages down to the lowest wage out there.
That’s the only way people like Rauner can make a dime, because he hasn’t been able to make any money at all with these labor laws…none at all, right?

Comment by BirdieSanders Friday, Dec 16, 16 @ 4:18 pm