The Big GuyBiden
...46th president of the U.S. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created ... by the — you know — you know, the thing...
in 2020, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has taken a page out of the same playbook. Last month, the governor, who reportedly has designs on the Oval Office himself one day, handed a taxpayer-funded sweetheart deal to one of his state’s largest public employee unions.
His designs better include a massive construction expansion
The state’s new collective bargaining agreement with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31 gifts its 35,000 state employee members a nearly 20 percent pay raise over four years, including a 4 percent raise this year. That adds up to a 61 percent better deal than they got during their last round of negotiations.
But that’s just the beginning. The agreement also throws in an extension of parental leave to 12 weeks and stipulates that workers will have zero increases in their health insurance premiums during the first year, a $10 a month increase in the second year and $8 a month in the third and fourth years.
In addition to sticking taxpayers with the bill for higher salaries, the contract will require private-sector employees — whose own healthcare costs will certainly increase by far more than $26 over the next three years — to pick up the tab for Pritzker’s idea of what medical coverage should look like.
Meanwhile,
...back at the shootout, Butch clutched at his other leg......
the state’s pension system, already underfunded by $140 billion, will sink further underwater as state employees retire in ever-higher income brackets.
All told, the contract is projected to cost an additional $204 million in the first year and an additional $625 million over four years.
Members of AFSCME Council 31 eagerly voted in local union meetings over the past two weeks to ratify the contract, which negotiators had tentatively agreed to on July 1. And who could blame them? The contract also includes a $1,200 "stipend" paid to every worker merely for ratifying the contract.