Secretary of State employees will be hitting the picket lines tomorrow. Over the last 7 months, Illinois Federation of Teachers and Illinois Federation of Public Employees members have been working on a contract with the state. Last month, union members rejected the employers’ “last, best offer” by a 2-to-1 margin and overwhelmingly authorized the union’s bargaining team to file an intent to strike notice if an agreement cannot be reached at the next bargaining session on February 14th
Tomorrow, the workers will picket at multiple state offices as an informational picket for the public from 11AM – 1:30PM. More than 250 employees work in the two unions that represent information system employees and various workers at the state archives, state library, capitol complex, and elsewhere. The largest sticking point for the two unions is that the Information Technology branch of the office earns less than workers in companies and other branches of the government doing comparable jobs. There’s also been a large turnover of employees over the last few years, creating an overload of work for IT employees. In addition to fair salary increases, the workers are seeking a maternity/paternity leave policy that aligns with the one in place for employees under Illinois’ other constitutional officers.
