AFSCME ends DHS reliance on temporary agency staff

For more than two years, AFSCME has been working to end the Illinois Department of Human Services’s (DHS) reliance on temporary agency staff in residential centers for people with developmental disabilities. Now, after Council 31 prevailed in statewide arbitration, those temporary staff are being converted into permanent state employees and joining the ranks of our union—and they’re already reaping the benefits of union membership.

“They’re excited about being in the union,” said Danny Williams, president of AFSCME Local 29 at Shapiro Developmental Center. “Some of them have never been union members, and they were working place to place and week to week. They like having the consistency of knowing where they’re working and where they’re going.”

DHS’s reliance on temporary agency staff began during the COVID-19 pandemic, when an unparalleled public health crisis created the need to institute emergency measures to fully staff facilities. As COVID-19 spread rapidly, AFSCME was committed to working with the state to fully staff facilities as safely as possible, even if that meant bringing in outside agency employees to fill the gaps.

But as the public health crisis subsided, DHS resisted changing its reliance on temporary agency staff, not acting quickly to develop a plan to transition agency staff into full-time DHS employees, or to recruit and retain permanent employees from outside the department.

The union’s position was clear: The department couldn’t continue to use emergency staffing measures when there was no emergency.

“We were angry, because it seemed to us like DHS was trying to take our work away,” said Stacey Adams, Vice President of AFSCME Local 401 at Murray Developmental Center. “From 2021 on, we fought and always let management know that these are state jobs. They should be done by state workers.”

Council 31 grieved this clear violation of state employees’ collective bargaining agreement. An arbitrator agreed with the union, ordering DHS to end all contracts with temporary staffing agencies by July 31, 2024.

Since the arbitration decision, local unions and AFSCME staff have worked to ensure compliance with the order, consistently following up with management at each DHS facility that still had temporary agency staffers working.

An important goal was making sure that not only were these contracts ended, but that temporary agency staffers were given the opportunity to join the department as full-time employees and become new AFSCME members in the process.

The effort has been a major success across the department. As of Aug. 23, 96 temporary staffers were brought on as full-time employees across the seven developmental centers, with all but 28 of those new employees having already started their employment.

One of the biggest successes came at Ludeman Developmental Center, where 24 agency staff have transitioned into full-time union-represented roles.

“We share the successes of the union with these new employees and go over how many advantages they’ve picked up in the transition from being temps to state employees, from the benefits, to paid holidays, to health insurance,” said Crosby Smith, president of AFSCME Local 2645 at Ludeman. “This campaign has been successful. Right away these employees start out knowing that the union will be there for them.”

At Shapiro Developmental Center in Kankakee, 22 agency staff have transitioned into full-time DHS employees. With a permanent workplace, many of these new DHS employees are relieved to not be working on the whims of a temporary staffing agency, to have the opportunity to settle in Kankakee, and to learn about the robust rights and protections they have as union members.

“One young lady who is pregnant is excited that she’s now going to receive maternity leave benefits,” said Williams. “When she comes back from maternity leave, she’s going to get into the Upward Mobility Program to become a nurse, which is a lifelong dream of hers. These things weren’t possible for her at her agency.”

Even at developmental centers where DHS is lagging on fully transitioning from temporary staffing agencies such as Kiley Developmental Center in Waukegan, AFSCME is seeing strong and consistent progress. The union is continuing to press management to make sure that hiring and retaining permanent, full-time employees is a top priority at each facility.