Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

AFSCME and the governor

Posted in:

Illinois

The Daily Southtown’s Kristen McQueary makes a good point in her latest column.

During a recent endorsement session, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees voted “present” on Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s re-election campaign, according to Capitol Fax.

AFSCME’s leaders are unhappy with the reduced state workforce in place under the Blagojevich administration. They also didn’t appreciate Blagojevich’s push last year to reduce pension benefits, the Fax reported.

But keep in mind that Blagojevich â€” guided by recommendations from a bipartisan panel of lawmakers â€” introduced several reforms that didn’t even touch the pensions of current state workers.

Blagojevich wanted to trim perks for future workers â€” perks that even union-loving Democrats admit are too generous and which the state can no longer afford.

Furthermore, Blagojevich pulled the plug, agreeing to a wimpy task force to keep studying the problem.

AFSCME got off easy.

She didn’t mention that AFSCME also got one of the sweetest contract deals in the nation last year.

The trouble is, the union’s rank and file mostly despises the guv. It doesn’t matter what he’s done for them (or what he might throw at them during supplemental appropriations negotiations), there’s just no way that the leadership could vote to endorse Blagojevich and retain their positions.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Jan 18, 06 @ 7:46 am

Comments

At least you should give the AFSCME officials some credit for representing the views of the workers that they represent. Too much of the organized labor heirachy here in Illinois is so beholden to people like Mike Madigan that they no longer seem capable of independent thought.

Comment by Randall Sherman Wednesday, Jan 18, 06 @ 9:11 am
It is is a little disingenuous to say the governor didn’t touch current state workers benefits. The state constitution forbids it. But then again it also forbids state funding for churchs … but that didn’t stop him from promising money to a Chicago church last week…

Comment by Anon Wednesday, Jan 18, 06 @ 11:50 am
In addition to the rank and file, the governor is not viewed in a good light by the many mid and upper level managers who soon may be unionized. Hard to sell your union to potential members with a Blago endorsement…and believe me, there is a lot of recruitment activity going on these days. And the union leaders were being asked the endorsement question when they sat in on these recruiting sessions.

Comment by 6 Degrees of Separation Wednesday, Jan 18, 06 @ 12:43 pm
How many AFSCME members were actually laid off when Blago came on board? Very few, I believe. AFSCME is just playing politics if they claim otherwise.

Taxpayers should be very, very concerned if “mid and upper level managers soon may be unionized”.

These means they will have lifetime jobs, with periodic raises, regardless of performance, and
regardless of whether or not they are actually needed to perform necessary work.

So the state will have to hire more exempt managers to do actual management work.

And since state government is grossly overstaffed
with managers anyway, especially in the human services agencies like DHS and DCFS, both agencies political job farms, we are talking about giving an awful lot of not very well qualified people
demand-free lifetime employment.

Again, the taxpayers will pay the freight.

AFSCME may be greedy, but they have it right on the management overage in Illinois state govt.

Comment by Cassandra Wednesday, Jan 18, 06 @ 5:02 pm
I have a dog that I have nicknamed AFSCME, she will take a biscuit from a stranger then try to bite them.

Comment by guvmint lifer Wednesday, Jan 18, 06 @ 5:56 pm
A.F.S.C.M.E. would be crazy to endorse this Govenor. I can still hear his promises” I WILL NOT BALANCE THE BUDGET ON THE BACKS OF STATE WORKERS”..lie…he not only cut front line workers he hired many “friends” unqualified to be our supervisors. Our prisons are dangerously understaffed and this Juvenile justice law that was passed was a huge mistake on his part. State service are suffering under his so called leadership. But hey…who doesn’t hate state employees until they need our services?

Comment by SHAFTED STATE EMPLOYEE Wednesday, Jan 18, 06 @ 7:04 pm
Cassandra once again needs to get her facts straight unless she’s working front line with the rest of the the AFSCME state employees who are covering 17-28% losses in staff since he took office.

They’d rather pay bookoo overtime and have staff get hurt on the job than make sure there are enough staff to do the job the way it should be done at direct care facilities. They’d rather understaff prisons. They’d rather you wait for months to get aid when you can’t work or have kids to care for, but that’s not your concern is it, now, Cassandra. That’s your every day state employees concern, who doesn’t have enough co-workers to help take care of day to day duties.

Going back to what I have to worry about now, because I’m one of those people who cares. And I’m glad we probably won’t be endorsing him (it’s not official until after this weekend folks.)

Comment by Tessa Wednesday, Jan 18, 06 @ 9:02 pm
My dearest Cassandra, you obviously know so little about the working conditions that the “B Team” suffers under. By the “B Teeam” I mean the career government employees who “B” there when Public Official # 1 arrived and who hope to “B” there next January when he leaves.

One of the first things that hair do did when he arrived was to freeze all hiring. Not just those positions which were vacant, but those positions which people had letters in hand telling them to start work monday morning. Vital positions which should have been filled, but because arod decided that ANY hiring under the Ryan administration was corrupt, ALL hiring and promotions were frozen.

Then taking a jab at the middle and upper middle management, blogo requires these people to pay 4% of their salary for their pensions which had been picked up by the State in 1992 in lieu of a raise. On top of that, Mr. Ethics Challenged s froze all raises for non-union personnel. So not only have these people labored for the past 3 years without a raise but they took a 4% cut in take home pay. I should add that the middle & middle-upper management were given a 4% raise that was effective last 12-2-05.

Are you with me so far - no promotions and no raises for the past 3 years.

Mr. Pay As You Go brought in huge numbers of people who were not qualified for their positions. he changed job descriptions which had required professional degrees & licenses to accomodate his political hack qualifications - donate money/work for his campaign and are reasonablely warm blooded. he also added positions which had previously not appeared on any organization chart. He fired entire units without understanding the consequences of his actions. He concentrated power & authority into a single department, CMS, without understanding how different departments function.

Hiring more Ruttan exempt personnel will only further pad the employment rolls with people who do not understand the operations of the various departments in state government. Attempting to “apply business models” to state government won’t work. State government is in the business of SPENDING money not earning money. Such models will hinder the operations of departments such as Transportation, Corrections, DCFS. A business minded manager will look at the head count of a prison and say that there is enough staff at a particular prison and not realize that the majority of the head count is in administration rather than in guards. A business minded manager is going to look at dollars and cents for a highway construction project and not the needed up grades to the safety aspects of the project.

The state is not grossly over staffed. We have not hired of new and qualified personnel since blogo got in office. Any hiring has been to fill non Ruttan position with unqualified political hacks who are more intrested in collecting a pay check that doing useful work.

By and large, the “B Team” are hard working employees who are providing a valuable service to the People of Illinois. Don’t blame us for break downs in the operations of the government. We are working as fast and as well as we can under pretty poor conditions.

Did I mention that mr. challanged ethics thought we were all crooks when he took office? We aren’t. We are pretty honest. We just look bad because of whom we have to associate with.

Comment by "B Team" Wednesday, Jan 18, 06 @ 10:19 pm
B Team - I didn’t mean to leave you out. I work with several quite qualified B team people, who deserved the raises that they missed. it was quite a slap in the face when they got the piddly raises in December, just in time for his…. Oh wait, he hasn’t announced he’s running for re-election yet….campaign.

The frontline management in local offices and such and in Springfield and Chicago didn’t get a fair shake by the people who came in with him and ruined the whole thing. The whole system is mucked up in every agency. I never thought it could be this bad.

Comment by Tessa Thursday, Jan 19, 06 @ 2:35 am
I really get a kick out of all of the lifetime state employees whining about how their bosses are unqualified. What they really mean is that their new managers are not all Republicans like they were for about 30 years prewviously.

Comment by Bill Thursday, Jan 19, 06 @ 7:43 am
Please note that I said that management ranks are overstaffed not direct service ranks. I’m fairly sure that Blago didn’t lay off any prison guards, DCFS caseworkers, etc. when he came on board. I’m not a Blago fan, but give him his due.

It should be fairly easy to identify understaffing in state agencies because most direct service jobs have workload standards, often national workload standards….specifying how many prisoners a guard should guard, how many foster kids in a caseload, how many mental health patients to a psychiatric nurse, etc etc.

I don’t know if direct service caseloads are
too high but wouldn’t that be the union’s job to find out and publish if the standards are not being met. Unions should do somethng for their dues. In the absence of any public information to the contrary, I’d assume as would most taxpayers, that the workloads are where they should be.

I do know, however, that management ranks are grossly inflated. And I’m not talking about the prison guard’s supervisor or the DCFS frontline supervisor. I’m talking about managers, administrators, PSA’s and SPSA’s, many of them political hires making $100k plus for doing very little.

A good recent example is the six figure salary
of Marty Cohen who lost out on a big state job
so was given another state job as a consolation price…a consolation prize which will cost the taxpayers millions ($100k plus a year plus health and retirement) if he hangs around, which I’m sure he’ll try to do.

Comment by Cassandra Thursday, Jan 19, 06 @ 2:17 pm
AFSCME’s thanks for endorsing the governor the first time was a threat of closing facilities, threats of lay offs, cutting benefits etc. He forced a surge of 500 plus members to storm the capitol to get his attention. If AFSCME should be grateful for anything it is the surge of new members they have obtained since Blago took office. His City of Chicago politics that have affected all state/quasi state agencies is intolerable. While under the facade that there was a hiring freeze and a wage freeze there has been a never ending parade of talentless hacks flowing into jobs and receiving raises on a daily basis.

Speaking from experience in the thirty (30) years that the Republicans were in charge I have never seen such evil doings as Blago’s patronage has done. Illegal release of Rutan employees when there were job openings (some employees with as much service as twenty-eight (28) good years of service); taking money away from employees to the tune of ten thousand ($10,000.00) dollars in order to add to their patronage’s salaries; creating more chief positions than there is a need now or ever; demoting and forcing the separation of service of talented and knowlegdeable personnel;cutting benefits of already underpaid employees (yes contrary to what people think some state salaried employees were making in the mid to low twenties)the benefits is what kept them working for the state. Before people go spewing malarkey they should do their homework like a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act)so their story is straight. Thanks to Blago the Illinois Tollway’s salaried employees will be union and yes they will be AFSCME union members. Just for the record the salaried employees have been non-union since the 1950s. There is a gold star for Blago’s report card!

Comment by angry and outraged Sunday, Jan 22, 06 @ 8:43 am