NEIUPI

Your negotiating team met with the administration’s team twice last week, Tuesday and Friday. We continued to pass our proposals to the administration and await their responses to each.

This week we passed proposals that addressed the working conditions of Academic Support Professionals. This language addressed concerns raised by members about multiple supervisors and grant funded salaries and lay offs as well as a reconsideration and appeals procedure for negative evaluations.

We passed revised language on the evaluation process and criteria for Teaching and Resource Professionals. Most notable in our proposed language was the development of the Application of Criteria and the negotiation of common elements. Your negotiating team proposed that common elements must be negotiated, rather than revealed by the President only after the membership has ratified a contract.

Like many of you, our team is concerned about the status of the excellence awards. We know that the committees have forwarded their recommendations to the President but there has been no announcement of the recipients. After the admin team argued that the awards could not be funded because there was no language in place authorizing funding amounts, on Tuesday we passed a draft of a Memo of Understanding that would fund the long-overdue awards and release them to the recipients. We received no response to the proposal on Friday but remain confident that the administration will respond this coming Tuesday.

Stop by the UPI tables this Wednesday or Thursday and pick up the latest summary of which issues remain open (i.e., workload, compensation), which articles have been TAed (tentatively agreed) and which issues are currently on the table.

Here’s a link for a letter to be emailed to your state legislators (senators and representatives). The report from the IFT is that the vote may occur as early as today.

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/pensioncut

It is very simple. Enter your information (email, home address, zip) and the system automatically sends it to your state senator and state representative. Indicate that you want a copy of the email sent back to you. I did it and my state legislators, De Leo and Mc Auliffe received word of my opposition to the change in pensions that by passed the ongoing discussions between the unions and legislative leaders.

It only takes a few minutes…

An article from Director of IRSI (Illinois Retirement Securities Initiative) refuting Tribune attacks on state pension system. Thanks to Dario Villa for forwarding this to our listserv.

Dennis Byrne’s Chicago Tribune column on January 26, 2010, which ostensibly highlighted the fiscal strain caused by the state’s $77.7 billion unfunded pension liability, sheds no real light on the subject and, in fact, simply repeated much of the misleading media coverage of this issue to date.

Faced with the annual challenge of either making its pension contribution and cutting services, or maintaining spending on services, such as education, healthcare, public safety and caring for elderly, politicians made the politically facile decision to divert revenue they should have used to fund pensions, into maintaining services, which is poor fiscal policy – but a far cry from what Byrne claims.

Read more at the Quad City Federation of Labor; original written by Bukola Bello, CTBA Director of the Illinois Retirement Security Initiative

Sorry for the onslaught on pension emails but it appears that the move on pensions has gained momentum. Below you will find an email from Steve Preckwinkle, IFT Director of Political Activity. The Madigan survey is attached to this email. While the “proposed” changes are are for new enrollees…the prospect is chilling. To quote a retired colleague….we’re on the edge of a slippery slope.

This is a call to action…Remember there are only a few IFT and UPI staff that are lobbying on our behalf…their voices are only as strong as the membership. Let the legislators know that Preckwinkle and others are not alone.

By now you may be wondering what in the world is going on in Springfield this week. I hope this message will clarify the situation to some degree. Please understand this is a very fluid situation at the moment, and your help is urgently needed.

I have attached a copy of a survey that House Speaker Michael Madigan distributed to all members of the House Democratic Caucus yesterday afternoon at around 2 p.m. No labor union participated in this effort and we were not made aware of it until after its distribution. The memo requests responses by the day’s end and he indicated to at least some members of his caucus that he intends to run a pension bill this week that he alone will draft based on their survey responses.

It may contain changes to all state and local systems, or just some of them. We have not been in negotiations with the House over this bill, and I expect we will be in strong opposition to it once it is made public and analyzed. We expect it will contain some provisions of the two-tier plan introduced by Rep. Kevin McCarthy last year, as well as some provisions contained in a bill introduced this year by Senate GOP minority leader Christine Rodogno.

For the past several weeks we have been in talks with Senate President Cullerton and his staff over the possibility of an agreed bill this spring with changes that the IFT could support. Cullerton defined three areas that he was most interested in looking at: normal retirement age, maximum pensionable income, and the state employee alternative formula. He also added the CTU system to the discussions.

These meetings followed a discussion at the February Executive Board meeting at which time it was decided the timing was right to begin such talks with the hope of getting an agreed bill that both sides could live with and that would stabilize the funding of the systems. We also met last week with the governor’s budget director to establish a “bottom line” target for reductions to the long-term unfunded liabilities of the systems in order for the State to avoid further downgrading of its bond rating. All of these meetings have included participation by the IFT, IEA, AFSCME, SEIU, the Teamsters, and the IL AFL-CIO. Madigan was invited to participate by Cullerton but declined to do so or send a representative. In my view all of those who participated in the discussions were operating in good faith to try to move the issues to agreement.

At about noon yesterday we were advised by Sen. Pres. John Cullerton that he was suspending further talks for the time being and would wait for the House to act. Shortly thereafter we heard about the Speaker’s new plan to move his own bill without waiting for the Senate to come up with an agreed bill. Cullerton has acknowledged meeting with Madigan over this issue.

We will not like this bill, and it being produced without any discussion or agreement with any labor union or the IL AFL-CIO.

I urge you to call your State Representative(s) today and ask them to vote NO on any bill offered for a vote that has not been agreed to by the IFT and the rest of organized labor. Please call both GOP and Democratic members.

Please email me with any responses you receive. We are working a full roll-call at this time with other unions. As always, thanks for your assistance and support. I will update you as we get more information

Steve Preckwinkle

Please read the March 23 letter sent to legislators by a coalition of unions in Illinois.