LETTERS
High court to put end to never-ending story
DCFS is having trouble making the employee's termination stick because the agency didn't act "as soon as possible" to take disciplinary action, in accordance with the union contract provisions. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees AFSCME has stood blindly by the side of this worker, providing legal representation throughout the appeals process. An arbitrator and the 4th District Appellate Court have refused to uphold the worker's termination. Now it remains for our state's highest court to determine whether as the state argues public policy interests (i.e., weeding out incompetent and untruthful child protection workers) supersedes collective bargaining requirements for "timely" discipline. (All of this overlooking the fact that at one point in the process, AFSCME created a seven-month delay of its own by seeking intervention from a Cook County court with no jurisdiction over the matter.) No one has denied that DCFS was untimely in its discipline. Gov. Jim Edgar, Director Jess McDonald and many fine employees have worked diligently to turn the agency around. Is it so unthinkable that AFSCME or any other union for that matter might step forward in a situation like this and say something like: "Yes, among our thousands of workers are people who are not competent to do their jobs in a manner which serves the public"? AFSCME has not denied that the worker falsified child protection records. Rather, AFSCME has provided unwavering and costly support in its efforts to reinstate her because discipline wasn't timely. Whatever the Illinois Supreme Court may decide in the weeks or months to come, the final outcome won't be timely. Let us just hope that it will serve the best interests of the children of Illinois and that in the future, members of AFSCME will tell their leaders to look beyond their contract language and do what is best to protect the children of Illinois.
Bob Kustra
More to the story in DCFS blame game
These problems have included: increasingly complex cases; severe understaffing; inadequate training; haphazard information management; and poor administration. Far at the bottom of the list, by any rational measure, is the very occasional instance of an employee who is discharged for incompetence and/or negligence and is returned to work by an arbitrator or the court because of union contract provisions. In the case at hand, the agency took seven months from the completion of its investigation to take disciplinary action against the employee. There has never been any explanation presented for this delay other than the implicit one of managerial incompetence. Lt. Gov. Kustra accuses us of "blindly" supporting this employee. In fact, we are fully aware of all aspects of the case and our position has been upheld in the impartial forums in which the case has been heard. On the 32 ¦ July 1996 Illinois Issues other hand, his letter would suggest that he is altogether blind to the supervisory failings that actually precipitated this situation. Ironically, in his zeal to score points against AFSCME, Lt. Gov. Kustra also chooses to blind himself to the progress that is finally beginning to occur in DCFS. Through an intensive labor-management cooperative effort, significant steps have been taken to restructure services, develop a more community-based focus and streamline administrative procedures. Conflicts and challenges certainly remain, and the path ahead will not be easy. The DCFS employees whom we represent are on the front lines every day trying to cope with our society's familial crises from neglect bred of poverty to the most heinous assaults on children. They need not be immune from criticism when they fall short; but they deserve far more for their dedication and their unheralded successes than the relentless attacks of the politicians whose actions or failure to act have handicapped the agency. It is unfortunate that Lt. Gov. Kustra did not use his position to spotlight the improvements now underway in DCFS as a means of providing encouragement to these employees. AFSCME and our members in DCFS are committed to continuing this effort to make DCFS a true protector of our state's children. We would only hope that in the future Lt. Gov. Kustra would join us at the battlefront instead of taking potshots from behind.
Henry Bayer
Some legislators upfront with scholarships
Hawkinson and Moffitt each use an independent advisory committee, consisting of representatives of colleges within the legislator's district, to review all applications and to select the recipients, based on specific criteria: residence within the district, scholastic ability, financial need, and activities and honors. Neither Hawkinson nor Moffitt is involved in the selection process. Each applicant to Hawkinson agrees that, if an award winner, his or her name will be released to the news media. Each applicant to Moffitt is to specify whether or not his or her name and information concerning the application may be released to the media on request. Contrast their procedure with Michael Madigan, who, according to the article, refused even to discuss the scholarship program. Call it partisan if you wish, but one cannot help but notice that, of the 35 present or former legislators involved in the questionable selections to persons outside their district, 29 were Democrats. Even more discouraging, however, is to learn of the degree that presidents of academic institutions will toady up to the legislators, for the suppression of information that would appear to be within the exemption to the federal privacy statute. Most persons, I believe, would infer from the material that a legislative scholarship is an "educational award."
David R. McDonald
Ban corporate farming in Illinois
There is a simple answer to the problems of pollution, water depletion, the cruelty to animals and the loss to farmers that they bring with them: Ban corporate farming in Illinois. Nebraska has done just that and not only have they maintained their hog production, they have increased the number of independent hog producers by 26.1 percent. Our Department of Agriculture is afraid of losing out to neighboring states in attracting these huge factory farms. Competition is fine, but isn't it also pertinent to ask what we are competing for? With these hog factories, I believe we are competing for a place in hell.
Jane Alexander
Deadbeat dads measure ends up in legislative morgue
New York's ambitious effort to locate deadbeat parents is succeeding, and Illinois' effort is going nowhere fast. The Illinois measure, of which I am the chief sponsor, is lying in Speaker Lee Daniels' legislative morgue, the House Rules Committee. According to the Illinois comptroller, overdue child support payments in Illinois top $1 billion, which are 81 percent of total existing child support claims. The General Assembly, however, is failing to act effectively and responsibly to collect this money. The Illinois legislation and the New York program require employers to provide identifying information to the appropriate state authorities for each new employee hired. In Illinois, the legislation directs notification to the Department of Public Aid, and it is required to maintain a new employee directory to aid the collection of child Illinois Issues July 1996 ¦ 33 support payments. The legislation would also represent a huge tax relief measure for the people of Illinois. If parents are paying child support, then the taxpayers are not. It is that simple. Illinois House Republicans have an opportunity to provide tax relief and bolster child support collection efforts here in Illinois, if Speaker Daniels only were to put the bill to a vote.
Louis I. Lang
Politicians ill-advised on nuclear waste disposal
In 1987, Congress made a political decision targeting Yucca Mountain, Nev., as the sole site for evaluation as a permanent underground high-level repository. Study of the site continues despite vigorous opposition, cost overruns and the recent discovery of geologic and hydrologic instability. Overturning current law, S. 1271 would create an "interim" dump site before scientific study could determine the site's suitability as a permanent repository. This move would prejudice further study and create a de facto permanent dump lacking adequate environmental safeguards. S. 1271 creates a litany of exemptions from current environmental laws. It prohibits the EPA from issuing regulations protecting the public from radiation releases; creates radiation exposure standards permitting four times the current exposure; and pre-empts the Safe Drinking Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, earning S. 1271 condemnation of the environmental community and a veto promise from President Bill Clinton. Congress would unleash the transportation of more than 40,000 tons of the most hazardous substance produced by humankind over our roads and railways, in shipping casks not yet designed, constructed, tested nor licensed. Nearly 13,000 shipments would pass through Illinois beginning in 1999. Since Congress provides no definite money to improve shipping accident emergency response capabilities for the 43 affected states and has begun deregulation of the trucking industry and removed the 55 mph speed limit, it has created all the necessary ingredients for a "mobile Chernobyl" to occur. As states spend tax money on emergency response, escort and planning, the burden for radiation protection would be transferred from the nuclear utilities (where current law says it belongs) to state and local taxpayers, representing yet another nuclear power subsidy. The nuclear industry warns that reactor sites weren't designed for long-term high-level nuclear waste storage, and that a single "interim" site would be "safer" for the public. The fact is that as long as reactors operate and continue to generate more waste, their license requires them to maintain high-level "spent-fuel" storage pools to hold the waste onsite. If it threatens the public to hold the waste onsite, then it must be unsafe to make any more waste that would continue this threat. The correct solution is to phase out nuclear power entirely and implement energy resources that do not produce nuclear waste at all, rather than continue shipping the hazard around to threaten someone else. Even nuclear experts insist that nuclear industry claims are meritless. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission states that high-level nuclear waste can be "safely" stored onsite for 100 years, while the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board a nonpartisan, scientific oversight body for the nation's high-level waste program states that centralized interim storage is currently unnecessary. If nuclear utilities are concerned about site safety, or about filling up their spent fuel pools, they can construct additional onsite storage while implementing energy resources that do not produce any waste. If they do not wish to charge their ratepayers for this expense a justifiable wish they should charge their shareholders, who presumably knew the risk of investing in nuclear power utilities when they bought their stocks. S. 1271 weakens current laws, ignores environmental protection, shifts financial burden from the nuclear utilities onto state and local taxpayers, addresses no demonstrated need, and most important, does nothing to permanently solve the nation's nuclear waste disposal problem.
David A. Kraft,
Michael Mitchell,
Bill Magavern,
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Sam S. Manivong, Illinois Periodicals Online Coordinator |