Editorial: Law judge's ruling in state employee contract dispute has implications for arbitration debate

Two months have gone by since Illinois lawmakers approved a partial-year budget in a climate of public outrage so furious that it included a coordinated campaign among many of the state's newspapers, including the Daily Herald, decrying political gridlock.

The so-called "stopgap" budget signed by Gov. Rauner after a year without any spending plan was said to show lawmakers were capable of compromise. It was supposed to give them time to craft a better, full-year plan.

Of course, we all know that the issue wasn't "time" but "timing." Politicians simply wanted to wait until the political landscape was clearer after the November elections to see if either side would gain enough of an advantage to tilt matters its way without the messy alternative of cooperation. The lack of progress evident so far, sadly, reinforces that cynical observation.

But cynicism could turn to something much deeper when you consider the implications of an administrative law judge's ruling last week regarding the status of contract negotiations between the state and its chief employee union.

Those talks have been stalled for more than a year and a half, and employees are working under terms of an expired agreement. Gov. Rauner wants regulators to declare an impasse so he can impose his will on matters of wages, health insurance, overtime, vacation and more. The union, AFSCME, contends that the sides are not at impasse, and the governor simply is not bargaining in good faith.

In a nonbinding 400-page ruling, the administrative judge declared that both sides are wrong - or, that both sides are right, depending on your susceptibility to semantics. Impasse has been reached on some issues, she wrote, but not on others. That left the two sides open to each declare itself right, which could be either cause simply for more cynicism or an object lesson of something much more ominous.

Judge Sarah Kerley's ruling, as she acknowledged herself, holds no force of law and the real determination will be made later this year by the Illinois Labor Relations Board. But it strongly demonstrates the shortcomings in a different but related dispute between Rauner and AFSCME.

The union badly wants legislation approved that would set up an arbitration process in disputes over contract terms. Rauner hates the bill because he thinks it gives a nonelected arbitrator powers he should have and because it requires an all-or-nothing decision. The arbitrator must accept one side's entire offer or the other's. Competing offers could not be divided into component parts.

Yet, that is precisely what Kerley's ruling did on the matter of impasse. It supported Rauner on some points, the union on others. The AFSCME-backed legislation, recently reintroduced after narrowly failing to overcome a Rauner veto last year, would not permit someone arbitrating contract terms to impose that kind of piecemeal solution.

It essentially would demand that each side compromise before reaching impasse, or risk the potential of the other's proposal being imposed entirely. That is not a promising alternative in our state. The yearlong budget hiatus and six-month faux stopgap pretty much show us what it leads to.

Cynicism and little else.

Keep that in mind as you consider candidates for the legislature in the eight weeks leading up to Election Day.