The largest state employee union on Thursday made its latest move in a years-long chess match against Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, announcing its members had taken the unprecedented step of authorizing a strike.
That doesn't mean state workers will walk off the job — union leaders made a point to say they first want to exhaust "every possible recourse." Instead, the labor group hopes to use the leverage of having a favorable strike vote in their pocket to bring Rauner back to the bargaining table to restart negotiations over a contract to replace one that expired in July 2015.
"Let's be clear, we have come to this juncture today for just one reason only: the refusal of Gov. Rauner to negotiate with our union," said Roberta Lynch, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31."We are willing, more than willing to work to find common ground. But we won't just roll over."
Soon after the union announced its new authority at a hall across the street from the Capitol, Rauner didn't budge. Talks remain at an impasse, the governor said, and he should get to enforce his contract terms.
"I really believe the right answer is to not have a strike," Rauner said. "The right answer is to implement, together in cooperative basis, the contract — our last, best and final offer."
The dispute is tied up in court, and union leaders said they have to give the governor's office a notice of five working days if they opt to strike.
Roughly 28,000 of the union's 38,000 members were eligible to take part in the three-week vote. Exempted from voting were corrections and juvenile justice workers who are not allowed to strike. Lynch said about 80 percent of those eligible to vote did so, with 81 percent voting in favor.
Bob Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said the strike vote is a sign of the union trying to set "parameters" for how to move forward with the dispute.
"An authorization vote to strike is in itself an attempt to define the end game. Or the end of the game," Bruno said. "It is a process by which you signal to the other party that the agreement is going to be reached either through compromise or it's going to be done on a picket line."
Chris Mooney, director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois, underscored the stakes for the union.
"It's not a stretch to say that they are in an existential fight at the moment," he said. "You've got a governor who is clearly not sympathetic to public sector unions and is in fact quite hostile to them, who I'm sure they perceive as somebody who's out to get them."
The governor and the union have been battling each other since before Rauner took office. As a candidate, Rauner railed against organized labor — especially the union he sometimes referred to as "Af-scammy" — and once suggested he would be willing to shut down the government and fire public workers if necessary to achieve his objectives. In one of his first acts as governor, Rauner tried unsuccessfully to cripple AFSCME financially by preventing public sector unions from collecting fees from non-members.
Since then, the Democratic-controlled General Assembly has blocked much of the Republican governor's legislative agenda, including rolling back collective bargaining rights. But Rauner doesn't need Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan's blessing to take a hard-line stance with AFSCME, since the governor gets to negotiate such deals as the state's chief executive.
That's helped Rauner score a string of political wins on labor issues as he enters his third year of waiting to achieve the items in what he calls his "Turnaround Agenda."
Most notably, some of the victories have played out in the legislature. Twice, Democrats pushed through bills that would have handed over AFSCME contract negotiations to an arbitrator. Both times, Rauner vetoed the measures and Democrats were unable to muster the votes to override him.
In addition, the governor has struck deals with 20 other bargaining units that represent smaller portions of the state government workforce. That allows Rauner to draw a contrast, and he often references those deals as evidence that AFSCME, not him, is the problem in the stalled contract talks.
As he tries to fundamentally reshape state government, Rauner has been operating in a way that on the surface might seem at cross-purposes, but affords him political positioning in the blame game should state government grind to a halt.
On the one hand, Rauner went to court to knock down an effort by Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan to stop state worker paychecks given the lack of a full state budget. If state government shuts down because of the long-running budget impasse, Democrats can try to assign responsibility to Rauner by saying his economic agenda is the prime cause.
On the other hand, if there's a shutdown because state workers walked out after the governor played hardball in contract talks, Rauner can attempt to pin blame on the union.
Indeed, Rauner's remarks Thursday heavily emphasized the notion that a new labor contract "needs to be fair" to taxpayers, seeking to tie the issue into the state's broader money woes.
"Why is our state the most bankrupt in America? Why do we have the biggest unfunded pension liability in America?...Why do we have one of the highest unemployment rates in America? Why do we have some of the lowest job growth in America? Why do we have the fifth-highest tax burden in America?" Rauner said. "You know what, we need to change our system. It's broken. It's been broken by lawmakers and elected officials for decades. We need to change."
AFSCME has long been a key ally to Democrats in the legislature, contributing funds to the campaign efforts and tapping into its large membership to knock on doors in favor of candidates. Last year, the union donated millions of dollars to various campaign funds, with much of that going to help Democrats, including legislators who were targeted for defeat by the Illinois Republican Party that Rauner heavily funds.
A strike could be damaging to both Rauner and the union. AFSCME has never before gone on strike in Illinois, so the fallout from such a move is an unknown, including how much of a strike fund the labor group has to fall back on. Even some of Rauner's Republican allies were skittish about a work stoppage, looking for some middle ground in a dispute made a top focus by their governor.
"I understand their frustration, there's frustration on both sides, but as long as you continue to communicate and try to negotiate, you have communication going on. If you strike, you don't," said state Rep. Dan Brady, R-Bloomington.
Rep. Sara Wojcicki Jimenez, a Republican whose Springfield-area district is packed with government workers, said "both parties need to negotiate a solution that's agreeable to both sides."
"I think that both sides — the governor and the administration, and the union — need to come together and try to find the middle ground during this process," said Jimenez, who Rauner helped get appointed to the House.
Democrats, traditional allies of organized labor, saw the situation as part of a continued effort by Rauner to dilute the union's power.
"I think in many ways the governor has been trying to get them to go out and strike," said Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie. "I think he believes chaos and the shutdown of state government is advantageous to him politically. I think he's wrong."
Talks between AFSCME and the governor's team stalled more than a year ago when Rauner declared an impasse in the contract negotiations — a technical stage that would allow the state to attempt to impose its last, best and final offer. The union objected, saying there was still room to negotiate, but a state labor panel later sided with Rauner. The governor then moved to put in place his preferred contract terms.
AFSCME and Rauner disagree over a number of provisions, including changes Rauner sought to health insurance for state workers, overtime rules and limits on privatization. The union contends that the changes would cost the average state worker $10,000. Rauner argues that the changes are needed to streamline government and bring it more in line with private-sector practices.
AFSCME went to an appellate court to challenge the labor panel's impasse ruling, and secured a temporary order halting the implementation of Rauner's terms. The appellate court has yet to announce a timeline for when it will take up the union's case. AFSCME has requested a more permanent stay to prevent the administration from moving forward on the contract while the case plays out, though the court has not yet weighed in on that matter either.
Meanwhile, Rauner's office contends a walkout would violate the terms of a temporary agreement reached during the protracted negotiations. That means the Rauner administration could bring its own legal challenge in an effort to prevent a work stoppage.
Next up, the union will convene its bargaining committee next week to discuss the results of the strike authorization vote. Lynch said the group will have to weigh a number of factors, including pending litigation. It's unclear whether the union would wait until legal questions are resolved before workers would walk off the job, and Lynch said the court cases could take months or even years.
"We are not prepared at this point to say that we've exhausted every possible recourse," Lynch said. "We are obviously going to pursue any legal remedy that we can, and we are going to continue to, I have to say, and I know it may sound utopian or quixotic on my part, but we are going to continue to think that at some point this governor will realize that conflict, confrontation is not the way to move our state forward."
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Still, Bruno called it unusual for unions to announce the turnout from their votes, a sign that Lynch might be sending a warning to Rauner.
"They're signaling to the other party, the governor, that if you think you can get a settlement because you can break a strike or we're not united and don't have a sense of solidarity and resolve, this should disabuse you of that," Bruno said.
