Here’s the proposed addition to the McHenry County legislative wish list being considered by the Legislative Committee at 8:15 AM next Friday, May 13th:
Union Collective Bargaining Reform
McHenry County supports a referendum to give voters the decision making authority to determine conditions subject to collective bargaining.
Allowing voters the option to pass collective bargaining reform will create significant savings for taxpayers.
Public employees should also have the option not to join a union and opt out of fair share fees.
Public sector unions should not have the authority to require non-union members to pay fees to support their collective bargaining activities.
You can find the original legislative program for this year here.
Finally!!!!!!!!!
Tell me more about the tax savings??
Excellent!
The County Board should post the change document for each collective bargaining agreement on its website.
The change document indicates the changes from one collective bargaining agreement to another.
Typically, underline text for additions and strikethrough text for deletions is used.
As an analogy, underline text for additions and strikethrough text for deletions is used in the Illinois General Assembly when proposed changes to laws are made.
Without a change document, it’s basically impossible to identify all the changes from one collective to another, because no one has time to compare word for word between two 45 or 100 page collective bargaining agreements.
The board doesn’t even need to policy to do so, although creating such a policy would result in a stronger enforcement mechanism if future regimes decide to hide changes once again from the public.
The collective bargaining agreements are found at this location on the county website.
http://www.co.mchenry.il.us > County Government > Departments A – I > Human Resources > Collective Bargaining Agreements
Try it yourself.
On the above website, pick a current contract, and the corresponding previous year contract, and locate every single change.
It is outrageous that both the board / administration and the union has a copy of the change document, but not the public.
And if the administration is not providing the change document to each board member, then that speaks to administration transparency of collective bargaining agreement change documents.
There is no good reason for taxing bodies to not clearly disclose all collective bargaining agreement changes to taxpayers.
Yet that is done in with around 99% of collective bargaining agreements.
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The “tentative” collective bargaining agreement change document should also be when the board approves the “tentative” agreement.
And the “final” collective bargaining agreement change document should be released when the board and union approves the “final” agreement.
A ridiculous process itself, do you buy a car or house with a “tentative” contract then “finalize” it 2 or 3 months later, and it’s not uncommon for some taxing districts to take over 3 months to reach a “final” agreement.
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At the very least, the change document should be released to the public 2 weeks prior to board vote.
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Better, the public should be able to vote on the collective bargaining agreement change document before it takes effect.
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Collective bargaining hikes not only hikes current pay, but hiked pay is a primary driver in hiked pensions, along with hiked pension benefits.
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The rules of the collective bargaining game are rigged against taxpayers.
Elected officials are not doing everything they can to provide collective bargaining transparency to taxpayers, and that affects property and income taxes.
Another waste of Taxpayer time and money.
The County can whine about Collective Bargaining but can do nothing legislatively about it.
Instead on focusing on issues that they can’t change why not work on issues they can and spend their resources there.
The county can and should post change documents for all proposed and passed collective bargaining agreements.
An example of a collective bargaining agreement change document is underlined text for additions and strikethrough text for deletions.
More specifically, a change document should be posted on the county website two weeks prior to board vote, and a press release issued, sent to the press, and placed on the home page notifying citizens of its availability and there will be a board vote in two weeks.
Better yet, post the change document a month in advance, with a board meeting for citizen comments two weeks later, and the board vote 4 weeks later.
After the board vote, no changes to the agreement.
Do away with the nonsense of “finalizing” the “tentative” contract after board vote.
The board votes on the final contract not a tentative contract.
Next, all future modifications to the collective bargaining agreements should follow the same process.
Such changes go under various names, including but not limited to, memorandums of understanding, memorandums of agreement, letters of agreement, amendments, side letters, riders, and an endless number of other synonyms.
Administrator contracts should follow the same procedure.
Shine some sunlight on collective bargaining and administrator contracts.