High Stakes for State Employees‏

Dear AFSCME Member:

The State of Illinois has its biggest budget deficit ever—more than $11 billion.

Nobody has a bigger stake in getting the state’s fiscal house in order than state employees. Our jobs, our retirement security, and the services we provide depend on the state’s fiscal solvency.

And we stand ready to do our part.

But we didn’t create this budget mess—and we have no intention of bearing the great part of the burden for fixing it.

That’s why AFSCME has taken a strong stand against Gov. Quinn’s proposals to increase employee pension and health insurance contributions and to cut pension benefits for new hires.

If there is a tax increase, we’ll pay it, like all of our fellow citizens. But we shouldn’t have to pay hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars more than they do. That’s how much the governor’s proposed changes could cost us when you tally them all up.

And we shouldn’t have to worry about whether our pension benefits will be there when we retire. Gov. Quinn’s plan to withhold most of the employer’s contribution to the pension fund this year could be the “tipping point” that causes the SERS to go broke.

Gov. Quinn’s budget plan would:
*Require all active employees to pay 2% more toward their pensions
*Raise the retirement age and cut benefit levels for new hires
*Withhold more than half of the employer’s share of the pension contribution
*Require employees in the Quality Care Health Plan to make up the difference in cost between that plan and the HMO
*Reduce the state‘s share of the cost of health care premiums for current and future retirees under the age of 65 to the level it pays for retirees on Medicare
*Require all employees—except public safety and direct care—to take four unpaid furlough days.

AFSCME believes that almost none of these changes can be made without bargaining with the Union--and so far the Governor has not made any request for such negotiations.

But one thing you should know for sure: Many legislators support these cuts, especially those that reduce pension benefits or raise pension contributions. And many others oppose the kind of tax increases that are essential to keeping state government operational and preventing layoffs.

So we’ve got our work cut out for us. The corporate elite in Illinois have banded together to press for drastic public employee pension cuts and to keep any tax increase to a minimum.

We’ve got to band together too—working through our Union to push for a fair budget that doesn’t drastically increase our pension and health insurance costs. That means working hard to persuade legislators to preserve the current pension system. And it means pushing hard to convince them to support a bigger tax increase than the Governor proposed—one large enough to get the state’s finances back on track, prevent layoffs and protect employee benefits.

It’s a tall order. Fighting to increase taxes is never easy. But we don’t really have a choice. It’s either every citizen paying a little more or state employees paying a lot more—whether through benefit cuts or massive layoffs. In the coming weeks, your union will be contacting you to get directly involved in this fight. Please be ready to answer that call!


Sincerely yours,
Henry Bayer
Executive Director

P.S. Click here to watch a terrific short video of one of AFSCME’s long-time allies, Ralph Martire of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, making a spirited defense of public employee pensions on a Chicago television program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P90nR3fhVAs