By Jonathan Samples | Bugle Staff
sweditor@buglenewspapers.com
@JolietILNews
State workers, activists and community group members filled the IBEW union hall in Joliet last week to criticize Gov. Bruce Rauner’s handling of state budget negotiations and demand fair contracts for public service unions.
Brent Cutro, a forensic scientist and latent print examiner at the state crime lab in Joliet, was one of those workers.
“I’m here to show strength and unity; to show that Gov. Rauner is making a mistake by treating state workers as he’s treating them,” he said.
Cutro, who works in the Illinois State Police’s forensic services division, said he has been working without a contract since July 1 and has not received a raise that offsets the rising cost of healthcare in more than six years.
“We need a contract, and we need a raise,” Cutro said.
The rally, held Dec. 8, was one of seven rallies planned throughout Illinois. Speakers from public service unions such as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Illinois Valley Federation of Labor, as well as state Democratic officials, argued that the governor’s “anti-union” agenda was damaging critical state services and weakening middle-class families.
“We’re standing up for fair contracts for state workers who have to negotiate directly with a governor who doesn’t respect them or the vital work they do,” AFSCME Executive Director Roberta Lynch told the crowd of almost 1,000. “We’re coming together from one end of the state to the other to say, ‘we stand together.’”
Specifically, Lynch was critical of funding gaps in various public services, as well as claims that union workers are overpaid and receive “overly generous” pension benefits. The veteran union organizer said the governor is using an anti-union rhetoric and state budget negotiations to target local government employees’ bargaining power.
“We see that this governor is trying to provoke conflict to force a strike, and we are doing everything in our power to prevent that from happening,” Lynch said. “We’re doing everything we can to negotiate in good faith. We’re doing everything we can to prevent a disruption in vital state services.”
While the focus of the rally was on the current budget impasse and its effects on public services, speakers also looked ahead to 2016 and described the upcoming election cycle as critically important for union rights throughout the state. Lynch told the crowd that they had a “special responsibility” to prevent candidates who are backed by Rauner from taking control of the General Assembly.
“If that happens, the first thing he’s going to do is kill unions and wipe out collective bargaining,” she said. “We have to treat these elections differently than any election before, because our survival is at stake in 2016.”
State Sen. Linda Holmes also spoke and echoed Lynch’s comments on the importance electing candidates who oppose the governor’s “turnaround agenda.”
She added that the governor is “holding the state budget hostage” in order to pass that agenda, which she described as an attack on prevailing wage and collective bargaining.
Holmes also directed some of the blame for the current issues facing state workers toward a “disillusioned” electorate that allowed Rauner to win the governorship in 2014.
“Unfortunately, we have to look in the mirror and say, ‘we sort of dropped the ball here,’” she told the crowd. “We allowed ourselves to be so disillusioned by some of the things our party has done to us.
“What we have to do now is take it back,” she said.
In addition to scheduled speakers, a number of local elected officials also attended the rally, including state reps. Larry Walsh Jr., Natalie Manley, Emily McAsey; state Sen. Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, Will County Executive Larry Walsh; and Will County board members Mark Ferry, Lauren Staley-Ferry and Herbert Brooks Jr.