|
 Bill No.: SB 1229
An Act Concerning State Government
Action: Vetoed
The governor’s veto message is as follows:
To the Honorable
Members of
The Illinois Senate,
99th General Assembly:
Today I veto Senate Bill 1229 from the 99th General Assembly, which
would amend the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act to replace
collective bargaining with binding interest arbitration.
For many months, I have advocated that local governments should have
the right to determine which subjects are collectively bargained
with their public employees. The response from some union officials
is that my proposal would “gut” the collective bargaining rights of
those public employees. Those same union officials proposed Senate
Bill 1229, which goes far beyond my simple proposal. It removes
every subject of labor negotiations from the bargaining process and
allows unelected arbitrators to impose billions of dollars of new
costs on our taxpayers without any involvement of the Executive
Branch, the General Assembly, or those taxpayers. This legislation
is undemocratic, it is bad for our budget, and it is
unconstitutional.
Senate Bill 1229 is also based on a false premise that our
Administration has been unreasonable in labor negotiations and wants
to lock-out employees or prompt an employee strike. Nothing could be
further from the truth. We have negotiated in good faith with AFSCME
since shortly after I took office. We came with our proposals ready
on day 1, and we made significant concessions from our initial
proposals, including revising our proposals on management rights,
dues collection, holidays, subcontracting, layoffs, and employee
pensions. We asked AFSCME to schedule more frequent weekly
negotiating sessions (which they declined), and we voluntarily
agreed to extend negotiations even after the current collective
bargaining agreements expired on June 30, 2015. At my request, those
“tolling agreements” contain express provisions that prohibit a
strike or lock-out during our negotiations. Today our Administration
signed a new tolling agreement that extends negotiations until at
least the end of September. We are working diligently to reach an
agreement with AFSCME.
Our proposals have also not been unreasonable. In fact, the
proposals we offered to AFSCME are similar to those recently adopted
by state employees represented by the Teamsters. It took only two
weeks from the time our Administration first met with John Coli, the
President of the Teamsters Joint Council 25, to reach agreement with
the Teamsters. The Teamsters, to their credit, were realistic about
the State’s dire financial condition. They cleared their calendars
to negotiate around the clock. They made no outrageous financial
demands for large pay increases or new health benefits. They had no
problem agreeing to a 40-hour work week. We similarly sought to
build a strong partnership with the Teamsters in exchange for their
concessions. We agreed to a large monetary bonus pool to reward
employees for their exceptional performance. Rather than have an
unlimited subcontracting provision, we agreed to allow the Teamsters
to bid on any project offered to a private sector company and share
in the savings achieved by the State. We also agreed to fund an
educational program for their employees, a top priority for our
Administration.
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Given time and
reasonableness, we can reach a similar agreement with AFSCME. This
legislation, however, prevents our Administration from doing so.
Many are unfamiliar with the concept of interest arbitration that
replaces collective bargaining in this legislation. It is not the
same as arbitration in civil law, business, or other contract
disputes. Interest arbitrators are not allowed to fashion a
compromise that Illinois taxpayers can actually afford. Presented
with the State’s and the unions’ proposals, arbitrators will be
picking winners and losers by accepting either side’s proposal in
its entirety. Because they are unelected and unaccountable,
arbitrators can decide to impose on the State the unions’ proposals
without regard to the dire impact those proposals will have on our
fiscal stability.
As I write this
message, if AFSCME seeks to impose its current proposal, it would
cost our taxpayers an additional $1.6 billion in salary and pension
costs and would eliminate $500 million per year in healthcare
savings that were part of the overall healthcare savings included in
both Democrat and Republican budgets. If an unaccountable arbitrator
awards AFSCME’s contract, the clear losers will be the State’s
taxpayers. And the already-difficult task of balancing the State’s
budget in a constitutional manner will become insurmountable,
hurting the beneficiaries of State programs and services that would
no longer be possible. We cannot afford Senate Bill 1229.
Finally, if enacted into law, Senate Bill 1229 would violate the
United States Constitution by retroactively impairing contractual
obligations. In the last round of negotiations, the State and unions
entered into collective bargaining agreements that spanned the
period from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2015. Negotiating those
contracts in 2012, both sides knew, and bargained with the
understanding, that any contractual obligations the parties
undertake would expire on June 30, 2015. Senate Bill 1229 changes
that bargain by extending the terms of expired agreements beyond
June 30, 2015. The United States Constitution forbids the State from
enacting a law that changes contracts retroactively. Senate Bill
1229 is therefore unconstitutional.
Senate Bill 1229 would cede major financial decisions to unelected,
unaccountable arbitrators. This legislation is bad policy and would
derail our efforts to honestly balance the State’s budget and enact
meaningful government reforms.
Therefore, pursuant to Section 9(b) of Article IV of the Illinois
Constitution of 1970, I hereby return Senate Bill 1229 entitled “AN
ACT concerning State government”, with the foregoing objections,
vetoed in its entirety.
Sincerely,
Bruce Rauner
GOVERNOR
[Office of the Governor Bruce Rauner] |
