It's up to an arbitrator to decide if Governor Pat Quinn was right to cancel pay raises for 20-thousand state workers or whether Illinois could have afforded it.
Last July, Governor Quinn shocked state workers when he announced that he was cancelling many of their raises. No matter that the state's contract with AFSCME guaranteed members of the union were due to see their salaries increase by more than 5 percent. Quinn said there wasn't enough money in the budget to pay them. AFSCME's been arguing that's a breach of contract. A Cook County circuit court judge could have settled the matter. Instead, he sent it back to an independent arbitrator. He's tasked with deciding if the state had the ability to live up to its contract. AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall says the union will argue Quinn had enough flexibility with state spending that he could have made it happen: "The administration has directed money to a number of other uses, some in the budget and some not necessarily in the budget. And if they have the money to do those things they have the money to keep their contractual obligation." But Quinn's spokeswoman says the administration's pleased with the ruling. She says the question justifies the governor's position that he could not pay the raises.
Arbitrator to Decide AFSCME Pay Raise Challenge
