By JOHN E. WILLIAMS
"If you are a public employee, you sit on your ass, you don't have to do anything, and you're a politician's hireling." That's how it goes in the minds of many taxpayers, at least. Too many people accept this do-nothing image of public servants, a hangover from the days of massive patronage when contracts did not specify promotion criteria, due process procedures and productivity clauses, according to Larry Marquardt, director of Illinois' American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees(AFSCME).
"Public employees work damn hard," Marquardt said, just as hard, if not harder than people in private industry. He said that AFSCME's "biggest job in the next few years is to convince the taxpayers in this state that state employees are really delivering a service." The services they provide, he added, demand competitive salaries to attract new and qualified workers.
In the course of a long union career, Marquardt worked his way to the top of the largest union in state government. Now he is faced with a triple-headed selling task in his position a^ director of AFSCME. He must first sell the public on the skills and professionalism of public employees at a time when tax-payers are demanding budgetary restraint and confidence in government is low. In addition, he must try to sell the union to employees not now among the estimated 25,000 AFSCME mem bers in Illinois. Finally, he must sell his constituents on his own leadership abilities.
In the latter area, Marquardt has apparently been successful. The rapport between the rough and burly Marquardt and the rank-and-file membership seems excellent, and at the state AFSCME convention in February, he was unanimously reelected director of the union.
But his old-time, open shirted image belies his sophistication as a leader and negotiator. His efforts as a lobbyist for a comprehensive collective bargaining bill, his grasp of fiscal matters, and his activist efforts in the state prison situation all suggest his range and sensitivity to subtle social and economic matters.
Like any union, AFSCME represents the workers in negotiations with the bosses. But in this role, a union can promote the interests of one side against the other. On the one hand, a union can protect workers from arbitrary and uniust treatment from the boss in the
workplace by winning a good contra and making sure it isn't violated. On the other hand, a union may ignore or misrepresent workers in employee management relations while delivering a stable labor force to run a business or government. Alone, the individual worker is powerless to win concession from management. But whetherthe union is responsive to its members depends primarily on the leadership.
The activist role
Marquardt projects the image of reponsive union leader willing to roll up his sleeves and get involved in the nitty gritty problems which plague hi constituents on the job. AFSCME wants to do more than negotiate for higher pay and better fringe benefits also works at improving working cond tions for its members, as its efforts in the areas of corrections and mental health suggest. This activist approach helps AFSCME encourage more state work ers to join the union which, in tun strengthens AFSCME's position at the bargaining table.
AFSCME's political efforts are like those of many labor organizations. Through its political arm, AFSCME
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lobbies for favorable legislation and supports candidates sympathetic to its cause. But AFSCME has gone a step further to promote itself through advertising in newspapers and on the radio. Though the expense and effectiveness of this method may be debated, it has ventured to sell the services of public employees to a public whose mood can be summed up in the phrase "no more government." Apparently well aware of this mood, Marquardt said AFSCME supports the elimination of government waste and opposes tax increases, but he stressed that public employees deserve adequate pay to perform meaningful services which the private sector could not provide at an equivalent cost.
As the largest and most powerful representative of state employees, AFSCME is also a major force in determining state spending for salaries through its contract negotiations. Since state employment is expected to remain rather stable in coming years, state spending for salaries will depend primarily on the rate at which salaries are increased. The increase is an important variable in the state's budget, since salaries are one of the top three spending categories for general funds.
This year, state negotiators and AFSCME reached agreement on a tentative two-year contract only 90 minutes after their self-imposed deadline of March 1. According to newspaper reports, the agreement calls for a $65-per-month increase starting July 1 and another $65 increase starting July 1, 1980, for a total increase by the second year of $130 per month. The terms were not announced officially, but submitted to AFSCME members for ratification. The agreement is estimated to cost the state up to $150 million over the full two years, but Gov. James R. Thompson evidently feels the state can afford it and pointed out that the agreement satisfies the 7 per cent wage ceiling guidelines of President Carter's anti-inflation program. Though the contract officially covers only 37,000 employees under the governor's office and code departments, the governor is expected to extend the wage increase to the other 15,000 employees not included in the five bargaining units represented by AFSCME.
In late February, just before the agreement was reached, Marquardt talked with Illinois Issues between rounds of the contract negotiations. His hopes and fears about the contract suggest how seriously he takes his role as buffer between sometimes conflicting forces. Marquardt said he hoped that meeting the March 1 deadline would encourage the General Assembly to accept the pay raise recommendations. AFSCME and the administration jointly agreed on the deadline so agencies could make wage adjustments in their budgets before submitting appropriations bills to the General Assembly. The problem in the past was the negotiations weren't completed until late June which forced agencies to ask the legislature for special appropriations to cover the wage increases. Meanwhile the agencies had to absorb the increases, reducing the money available for services. "We don't want the agencies put in that position," Marquardt emphasized.
The 'if-come' formula
Two years ago, negotiations weren't completed until the last minute, and Gov. Thompson who had already fought off increase requests in other areas for the sake of a balanced budget, offered a unique provision: he promised an extra pay raise only if more state revenue came in than was projected. Under the contract, signed by the state and AFSCME in July of 1977, state employees received a $50-a-month increase. In addition, both parties agreed to apply an "if-come" clause at the end of fiscal 1978, stipulating that employees could receive up to an additional $50-per-month if the state received a sufficient amount of unanticipated revenue to cover the increase. When June 30, 1978, arrived, the state's fiscal experts said the revenue wasn't there and that AFSCME shouldn't get anything. AFSCME disagreed, claiming there was enough extra money for the full $50 pay increase. A federal arbitrator was called in — the same arbitrator who helped draw up the 1977 contract. He ordered a $40-per-month increase. Was AFSCME satisfied? "We would have liked to have seen $50," said Marquardt, but AFSCME was "happy with $40."
Asked if his union would seek the if-come formula again, Marquardt said "no," explainingthat AFSCME had agreed to it two years ago only because Thompson was a new governor. And since neither the governor nor AFSCME wanted to raise taxes, they agreed to the formula. The agreement AFSCME finally reaches with the state this year can have clear and specific effects on AFSCME's organizing efforts. The combined $90-per-month increase for state employees under the current contract has helped AFSCME's membership drive significantly, according to Marquardt. He said that although AFSCME was already growing steadily, membership jumped about 10 per cent between the signing of the last contract and the arbitrator's ruling.
Getting pay hikes for state employees is one of the union's major selling points, Marquardt admitted. But he also wants to sell the strength and solidarity that a larger membership can gain. "Our position is that the more members we have, the more the state will think the employees are really concerned about what goes on in negotiations," he said. And the more members he has, the better he can assert that union requests are founded on broad-based, unified support.
Getting more input from more public employees on contract terms is critical in AFSCME's present organizing drive. The master contract negotiated at the state level primarily concerns economic and general issues that affect state employees regardless of their location in the state. But between the completion of the master contract (which has to be ratified by the membership) and July, supplementary contracts have to be worked out by each local of the union. Marquardt said AFSCM E wants to get the message across to potential members that what happens in supplementary negotiations will affect on-the-
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job conditions for the duration of the master contract.
Supplemental contracts contain the specific clauses implementing the master contract and are negotiated at the local level. For example, in the case of employees returning to work after a leave of absence, the master contract stipulates employees have the right to return to their job classification within a specified period of time. But whether returning employees receive their previous job assignments might depend on the details of the supplementary contract. Local negotiations also deal with the equalization of overtime. Such issues should be resolved at the local level, Marquardt said.
The union reorganization
Marquardt also pointed out that, contrary to some impressions, he is merely the spokesman for the union while "the negotiating committees are the ones that vote on what goes in the contract." He emphasized that those committees don't know what to vote on unless people tell them by joining and becoming involved in the union.
Meanwhile, AFSCME has reorganized in an effort to save money and involve more members in statewide affairs. At its February convention, the union voted to centralize its operations by consolidating its four regional councils into one statewide council. Marquardt summed up the reorganization as an "economy drive to get better services and to be able to utilize the dues money a little better."
AFSCME's recent involvement in the state prison controversy is a good example of its activist efforts. Prison guards and other employees in the Department of Corrections have long been a source of AFSCME strength, and the union has taken an active role in efforts to resolve serious problems in Illinois prisons. The situation became acute last summer at Pontiac where a prison riot resulted in the death of three guards. According to Marquardt, "Our guys [would] have no problem," if adequate safeguards were established and maintained. Marquardt said that it is still possible for guards at Pontiac to be attacked and left unattended for hours because of blind spots in the prison's surveillance system. He also said it's still possible that some inmates have keys to the cells. To rectify both potentially dangerous situations for guards, AFSCM E has asked the state to build an observation tower and to change the locks.
AFSCME asked the governor to study the problems at the state's prisons, and the subsequent report was generally acceptable to AFSCME, according to Marquardt. The report recommended that more prison guards be hired and higher salaries be paid, but Marquardt said that better pay is needed not merely to compensate guards for the tough work they perform, but also to induce them to stay on the job. "Once they get trained and see what it's like on the inside, they quit," said Marquardt. He estimated that only one out of five guards remains on the job as a long-term career.
Marquardt also acknowledged that reaching agreement with the governor's administration to improve conditions at the prisons isn't the end of the battle. If money must be spent to correct a problem, the legislature must appropriate the money, and AFSCME may have to undertake lobbying efforts in this area.
The waste in government
The prison situation illustrates AFSCME's activist role in improving working conditions for a specific group of its members, but the union has also responded to more general issues which affect state employees as a whole.
When the Governor's Cost Control Task Force recommended that the state eliminate 6,500 jobs to help cut waste in the state budget, AFSCME did not agree. Marquardt said AFSCME supports many of the 678 recommendations in the report because the union is "not against cutting waste." But in the same breath, Marquardt said that AFSCME thinks "the report was misleading."
For example, he said the report claimed the state could eliminate 500 employees by closing a mental health facility in East Moline and transferring patients to other state facilities where unused bed space exjsts. But, he pointed out, "If 40 patients go to Galesburg, you are going to need additional staff for the additional patients."
Marquardt agreed that it is wasteful to have empty beds in state hospitals. AFSCME's position, he countered, is to put people who need help in those empty beds and to take care of them properly. "There are mentally ill people in this state walking around getting no care at all and others who are put in dungeonlike nursing homes," he said.
The prevailing approach to health care in the state, according to Marquardt, is "to throw it [the health care problem] in the community and in the private sector." Marquardt said he believes a private citizen would have to pay more money to get decent care in the private sector than it would cost if the state used its money to provide equivalent services. Yet, Marquardt softened his criticism and said, "The state, with the funds available, provides pretty good service."
But Marquardt said there are some people who want care and can't get it because the departments are trying to cut their budgets and therefore don't want any more patients. It appears "our people have quotas to get rid of so many people," Marquardt claimed. As a result, he said, people who shouldn't be back in society are being released.
Returning to the criticism of the Cost Control Task Force recommendations, Marquardt said the report suggested to the public that the state can save millions of dollars in the Department of Corrections (e.g., by selling excess land), while the report did not indicate that many more millions of dollars would have to be spent just to provide decent facilities for current inmates.
Marquardt said that AFSCME didn't have the manpower to study the details of the task force report, but it was concentrating on those areas where cutting costs would also cut services. He admitted he couldn't cite the number of jobs that could be justly eliminated. One recommendation to save waste was outright wrong, according to Marquardt. The report said the state could save $48,000 a year if the union paid
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one-half the cost of arbitration. The union already does, according to Mar-quardt.
The longest battle that AFSCME and other public sector unions have fought is over passage of a comprehensive bargaining bill, which is a top priority in the legislative arena for AFSCME this year. Marquardt explained that collective bargaining would be much firmer if it were a law rather than just an executive order. "A law would be clear-cut," Marquardt said, and would end the "ambiguity that exists in some people's minds." AFSCME wants a collective bargaining law covering all public employees, not just those of the state, since AFSCME also has members working for cities, counties and universities.
The victory of Jayne Byrne over Mayor Michael Bilandic in the Democratic Chicago mayoral primary may mean the bill will pass. In her campaign, Byrne said she supports collective bargaining and indicated that she would grant a contract to city firemen. For years Mayor Richard J. Daley refused to recognize police and other public employee unions' attempts to negotiate formal union contracts for city workers. At the same time, Chicago Democrats in the state legislature had their marching orders and formed a united bloc to stop a statewide collective bargaining bill that might jeopardize the "handshake" agreements in Chicago. If Byrne becomes Chicago's mayor and fulfills her campaign promise, it would be illogical for the Chicago Democrats to continue opposition to a state collective bargaining bill.
For AFSCME, the reality of a collective bargaining law seems less a question of if than when. "Each time it gets a little further,. Pressure is mounting, not only from our union but also other public employee unions," said AFSCME staffer Henry Bayer.
While all unions share similar challenges in recruitment, negotiations and organization, Marquardt believes that public sector unions such as AFSCME face a tougher job than private sector unions. In addition to the typical private sector boss-employee relationship, public employee unions must contend with the public whose tax dollars support the public sector. In marked contrast, Marquardt said the "UAW doesn't have to convince the public of anything." When General Motors raises the price of their cars to make bigger profits or to cover a wage hike sought by the UAW, Marquardt said people simply pay it. "They don't complain about a rip-off on profits as they would about a small increase in taxes."
Marquardt also fully realizes the different role that public management must play as opposed to private sector management. The administration's promises require appropriations to be passed by the legislature. And no one wants to raise taxes and face the angry taxpayers when it's time for reelection.
Marquardt summed up AFSCME's toughest job: it must show the public that the union is not ripping off the public or the state. State employees constitute part of the public just like others who have families and pay taxes, according to Marquardt, and AFSCME must convince the public that "public employees do a job for them and . . . public employees deserve a decent wage.
UNTIL Gov. Daniel Walker issued Executive Order No. 6 in September 1973, there were no guidelines for collective bargaining by state employees. Walker's executive order covered only those employees under his jurisdiction, but that included the vast majority of state workers. The order recognized the right of some 65,000 employees — mostly in the governor's 21 code departments — to bargain collectively. It also created the Office of Collective Bargaining (OCB) which determines bargaining units, holds elections to decide which employee organization will represent a bargaining unit, investigates and resolves disputes over unfair labor practices and determines what can be negotiated in a union contract.
Bargaining units can cut across state agency lines but are made up of employees with similar jobs and interests. An employee organization must get the signatures of at least 30 per cent of the workers in a proposed unit in order for elections to be held. Once the OCB has approved the unit, elections by secret ballot follow to determine which organization will represent the unit or if employees want a union at all. Any organization that can show it has the backing of 10 per cent of the workers in the unit gets on the ballot. The result is determined by a majority of ballots cast.
The immediate effect of the Walker order was a push for membership among rival employee organizations in which AFSCME, bringing in organizers from Washington, D.C., rapidly took the lead, making big membership gains among the state's white collar workers. Currently AFSCME has a membership of about 25,000 and represents some 37,000 state workers.
AFSCME's five bargaining units are: the Correctional Security Unit, consisting of 2,873 prison guards (about 90 per cent are union members), located at correctional facilities throughout the state; the Institutional Care Unit, involving 10,744 blue-collar and human service workers (about 80 per cent AFSCME members), employed by the departments of Mental Health, Public Health, Children and Family Services and by the Illinois Veterans' Home; the Clerical and Para-Professional Unit, consisting of 11,063 clerical workers (roughly 50 per cent AFSCME members), employed in agencies throughout the state, often in large work pools which handle lots of paperwork like those in the Department of Revenue; the Professional Human Services Unit, representing 11,450 employees (roughly 50 per cent AFSCME members), many of them mental health specialists and public aid caseworkers; and the Para-Professional Human Services Unit, with 1,970 workers (roughly 50 per cent AFSCME) whose jobs range from counseling to processing disability claims and unemployment insurance.
Nine other bargaining units covering 5,907 state employees are represented by the Teamsters, the Illinois Nurses Association, the Illinois State Employee's Association, the Illlinois Federation of Teachers, the State Employees Fire Fighters Association and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Elections will be held in May or early June to determine whether AFSCME, the Teamsters or the ISEA will represent about 600 general maintenance workers.
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