Here in Illinois there have been recent lawsuits regarding retiree health insurance premiums. Just last week multiple lawsuits were filed regarding plans to cut pensions.
Instead of firing verbal shots, pouring resources into litigation and inventing cartoon characters (I'm looking at you Squeezy), perhaps the time is ripe for mediation. Time and resources are huge factors. The financial woes of the State of Illinois have been regularly decried in the news, even inspiring a recent TIME magazine article.
When a suit is filed against the State, it is government lawyers who must defend it resulting in a drain on manpower time and resources. Meanwhile, nothing gets resolved and the money continues to drain out while hostilities between the parties grow. Adding to the pressure…2014 is a gubernatorial election year.
The Illinois Supreme Court heard arguments on September 18, 2013, regarding the Illinois retiree health insurance cases. So far no opinion has been issued, and those cases involved a 2012 law. Do the unions who filed the pension lawsuits really want to wait for months or even a couple years for the case to be heard and decided? In the meantime, the employees and retirees are left wondering about their retirement plans and the security of the pension monies that have already been deducted from their earnings.
If Quinn is interested in being re-elected, does having multiple lawsuits in the air harm his chances? Perhaps other elected officials are also concerned about holding on to their jobs in the face of mounting public disgust with the state of the State. Would Quinn and the legislature score more points with the voting public entering into mediation or continuing to expend state resources in extensive litigation? Possibly the Illinois taxpayers would prefer paying mediators to protracted litigation.
Obviously I don't know if mediation would work in Illinois the way it did in Detroit, but to me it makes sense to try it before the various costs of litigation pile up. Both the employees and the elected officials could potentially benefit from trying to work out an agreement in a time and cost-effective manner.
In the interest of full disclosure, I did spend over six years employed by the State of Illinois. During that time deductions were made from my paycheck towards the pension fund. However, I was never a union member and after leaving my state job withdrew my pension monies leaving me with no personal stake in how these lawsuits play out beyond that of an ordinary citizen and taxpayer.
