Mandatory Union Dues questioned

McCaleb: All eyes on Illinois case that could change U.S. labor law

• By Dan McCaleb | Illinois News Network
• Sep 5, 2017
• (3)

Shutterstock photo

Americans are back to work this week after celebrating another Labor Day holiday.

By the time the next Labor Day rolls around in 2018, the country's labor laws – particularly as they relate to public employee unions – could be dramatically different.

That's thanks to a lawsuit emanating from the state of Illinois.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide later this month whether it will hear arguments in the case Janus v. AFSCME.

Mark Janus is a child support specialist for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. He fights for kids who get caught up in custody disputes or who otherwise need an advocate outside of their families.

As a non-salaried state employee, Janus was forced to pay fees to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union. He didn't realize it until he received his first paycheck and noticed a portion of his salary went to AFSCME.

Janus didn't like that. He and many others like him believe that being forced to pay dues to a union whose representation they don't want and whose politics they don't agree with is a violation of their First Amendment rights.

Make no mistake: Unions, both public sector and private, are political organizations.

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The National Institute for Labor Relations Research issued data earlier this year that showed labor unions spent more than $1.7 billion on last year's election. That's more than George Soros and the Koch brothers combined. In Illinois, unions spent more than $35 million on political campaigns in 2016.

Janus and thousands of others like him essentially are forced to contribute to political organizations that donate to the campaigns of candidates they otherwise wouldn't support.

That's un-American.

"I don't see my union working totally for the good of Illinois government," Janus said in a guest column published in the Chicago Tribune. "For years, it supported candidates who put Illinois into its current budget and pension crisis. Government unions have pushed for government spending that made the state's fiscal situation worse."

So Janus sued AFSCME.

As his attorneys anticipated, Janus lost every step of the way as the case made its way through Illinois' federal courtrooms. In March, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals struck it down, opening the door for an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. His attorneys filed that petition in June, and the court is expected to decide whether to accept the case by Sept. 28.

If the Supreme Court decides to take the case, Janus has a good shot at winning.

A similar case in California, Friedrichs vs. the California Teachers Association, made it to the Supreme Court in 2016. The court split on the California case, 4-4. But that decision was rendered after conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died. Scalia likely would have joined his colleagues who ruled in favor of Rebecca Friedrichs, a California school teacher who also believed her constitutional rights were being violated by being forced to pay union dues.

With Neil Gorsuch – President Donald Trump's pick to replace Scalia – now on the bench, advocates for both sides of the issue are focused on Janus.

If Janus wins, millions of government workers who have been forced to give up part of their salaries to unions they don't support will no longer have to if they don't want.

Unions, essentially, will have to prove to public employees that their representation is worth the cost of the dues they charge.

And that's the way it should be.

Dan McCaleb is news director of Illinois News Network and the digital hub ILNews.org. He welcomes your comments. Contact Dan at dmccaleb@ilnews.org.

Above is from:  https://www.ilnews.org/opinion/mccaleb-all-eyes-on-illinois-case-that-could-change-u/article_7a714760-924b-11e7-932a-d310c6ca8314.html

Push Governor Rauner to Sell Bonds to Cut Unpaid Bills

Illinois Officials Push Governor Rauner to Sell Bonds to Cut Unpaid Bills

By

Elizabeth Campbell

September 5, 2017, 3:34 PM CDT

• Unpaid bills have ratched up to $15.3 billion, near record

• State could save money if it refinances debt, S&P has said

Illinois governor Bruce Rauner

Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Illinois officials are pushing Governor Bruce Rauner to sell bonds to pay bills left from the state’s record budget impasse, saying it would reduce steep interest penalties of as much as $2 million a day.

The spending package that the legislature enacted two months ago over Rauner’s veto authorized the state to issue as much as $6 billion of securities to cover bills that accumulated during a unprecedented two-year standoff over the budget.

On Tuesday, Senator Donne Trotter, a Democrat, urged Rauner, a Republican, to sell the debt to pay health-care providers and other state contractors that have had to lay off staff and borrow because they’re waiting to be paid. Comptroller Susana Mendoza has also called for the governor to sell the bonds.

“We remain in a political and fiscal crisis,” Trotter said during a press conference in Chicago on Tuesday.

Illinois could save money if it borrows to pay down the unpaid bills, some of which are accumulating as much as 12 percent interest, S&P Global Ratings said in a report last month. In the meantime, the state is paying about $2 million a day in interest on about $5.5 billion of unpaid bills that were more than 90 days old as of June 30, according to a memo from the Commission on Governor Forecasting and Accountability, which cited the state comptroller’s office.

Elizabeth Tomev, a spokeswoman for Rauner, didn’t immediately have a comment on Trotter’s call to issue the bonds. Trotter is a sponsor of the budget implementation bill that extended the state the borrowing authority.

The budget package for the year that started July 1 estimates an operating surplus of about $360 million, enough to cover debt service on about $3 billion of GO bonds with a 12-year maturity, according to S&P, which cited legislative sponsors of the bill. The bonds, which have a 12-year maturity, must be sold by Dec. 31, according to the parameters of the legislation.

The state’s bill backlog stood at $15.3 billion on Sept. 1, just shy of the record $15.4 billion reached in June, according the comptrollers’ office. Those unpaid bills include about $540 million of general state aid payments that will go out this week, and another $270 million that will go out over the weekend now that lawmakers approved a school funding bill, said Abdon Pallasch, a spokesman for the comptroller.

Marvin Lindsey, chief executive officer of Community Behavioral Healthcare Association of Illinois, and Leslie Rogers, vice president of South Shore Hospital, joined Trotter to urge Rauner to use the bonding authority.

“What it means to us is lost opportunity as you’re paying interest on loans that you did not anticipate having, that is sunk, lost cost that will not be reimbursed by anyone,” Rogers said during the press conference. “We ask and we need for the governor to utilize the tools in order to help move us forward.”