Rauner’s “legally questionable” move targets fair-share fees

Despite the many pressing issues confronting Illinois, Gov. Bruce Rauner has continued to devote his time and energy to trying to weaken public employee unions.

Rauner’s latest move is aimed at implementing his Feb. 9 executive order forbidding state agencies from transmitting employee fair-share fees to the union. The governor’s office spent more than a month scrambling to come up with some way to confiscate the funds after Comptroller Leslie Munger refused to go along with his “illegal” scheme by escrowing the Fair Share deductions.

AFSCME, the Illinois AFL-CIO, and more than two dozen other unions filed suit in circuit court on March 5 to have the executive order invalidated.

In a memo released March 17, the governor’s office ordered state agencies to cut the pay of fair-share employees by an amount equivalent to the fee they would normally pay to the union. The memo effectively tells agencies to maintain two sets of books – one that keeps fair-share fees in the operating budgets of agencies by reducing pay, and another that documents the amount of the fees.

If the memo’s instructions are put into place, it would create major logistical hassles for payroll offices and cause problems related to tax withholding for employees. It would also unilaterally lower the salaries of bargaining unit employees, which would violate the state master contract.

"This legally questionable scheme shows the lengths to which Gov. Rauner will go in his obsession to undermine labor unions," Council 31 Executive Director Roberta Lynch said. "To frustrate lawful fair-share agreements, Rauner is ordering payroll staff to make unauthorized reductions in employees' established salaries."

Fair Share fees are contributed by those bargaining unit employees who choose not to join the union.  Rauner’s Feb. 9 executive order calls for the fees to be withheld from the unions representing state employees while federal courts determine, at Rauner’s request, whether such fees are constitutional. Rauner asked for the ruling even though fair-share fees are authorized in state law and have been found constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.