By Pat Barcas
Staff Writer
Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013
     It was expected, but state workers still don’t appreciate the appeal that Gov. Pat Quinn has filed over a Cook County judge’s ruling that the state must pay wage increases owed to state employees.
     “Yet again Governor Quinn has shown his disrespect for state employees and disregard for their union contract,” AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Henry Bayer said. “We repeat our call for the governor to drop his wasteful appeal and pay workers the wages they have earned.”
     Quinn filed the appeal in the final hours of the final day on which his administration could appeal a judge’s decision to pay negotiated wage increases, according to AFSCME.
     In early December, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Richard Billick ordered the Quinn Administration to pay back wages owed to state employees since July 2011. The judge found that Quinn owes the wage increases pursuant to the union contract and must pay them in full now or at 7 percent interest in the future.
     Quinn said he didn’t pay the raises initially in 2011 because the state Legislature hadn’t sent him the payroll money. He originally canceled the raises for state workers in 14 agencies, then said there was enough money for raises in eight agencies, but no state workers have received their 2 percent raise.
     The appeal needlessly prolongs the already costly and time-consuming legal wrangling over Quinn’s failure to pay negotiated wage increases to some 30,000 employees in direct violation of union contracts.
     The circuit court ruling echoed an independent arbitrator’s award, issued fall 2011, that determined Quinn had violated union contracts and must pay the wages — an award the governor sued to vacate.
     By choosing to appeal instead of honoring the judge’s decision, Governor Quinn will subject employees to further lengthy delays in receiving the wages they are owed.
     Affected employees are those who work for the Illinois Departments of Corrections, Human Services, Juvenile Justice, Natural Resources and Public Health as well as the Human Rights Commission.

Pat Barcas’ e-mail address is pat@foxvalleylabornews.com.