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Gov. J.B. Pritzker agrees to pay raises, back pay ex-Gov. Bruce Rauner blocked for home aides, child care workers

Chicago Tribune - 3/19/2019

March 19-- Mar. 19--Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker's administration has agreed to pay wage increases for home care and child care workers, as well as about $44 million in back pay that his Republican predecessor withheld.

Under an agreement with the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Illinois announced Monday, the Pritzker administration will give 28,000 personal assistants in the state's home services program raises of 48 cents per hour. Workers in the state Department of Human Services program, which provides in-home care for people with disabilities, currently earn $13 per hour.

The agreement with SEIU marks the second time Pritzker has opened the state's checkbook for union workers whose raises had been hung up for years under former Gov. Bruce Rauner's administration. Shortly after taking office, Pritzker agreed to pay raises for more than 20,000 state workers represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31.

Rauner, who spent his one term battling legislative Democrats over his pro-business, union-weakening agenda, did not reach an agreement with the SEIU workers after their contract expired during his first year in office. Lawmakers wrote the 48-cent raise into the state budget that was enacted over Rauner's veto in July 2017.

But the Rauner administration refused to grant the raises, prompting a class-action lawsuit from the workers. A Cook County Circuit Court judge ruled in the workers' favor last year, and a state appeals court upheld the ruling last month.

"Today, we are putting the State of Illinois back on the side of working families, and rebuilding the vital services and the workforces that deliver them to people with disabilities, working parents, and kids in every corner of our state," the administration and the union said in a joint statement. "We look forward to continuing to stabilize these programs together, and we share a commitment to fixing other harmful Rauner policies through the bargaining process."

Workers will begin being paid at the new rate on April 1 and will receive back pay by late fall at the latest, with the back pay coming from money held in an escrow account, according to the joint statement. The cost of back pay for home care workers amounts to about $29 million and about $15 million for child care workers.

As part of the new agreement, the Pritzker administration will implement a 4.26 percent increase in the daily rate paid to 14,000 providers through the state's child care assistance program for low-income families. The daily rates vary by provider and region. The increase was included in this year's state budget, but Rauner also withheld the additional pay.

Child care workers sued the state last fall to force payment, but SEIU has agreed to drop the lawsuit as part of its deal with Pritzker.

Like the home care workers, child care providers also are working under a contract that expired in 2015. Negotiations with the new administration over both contracts are expected to begin this spring.

On his first full day in office in January, Pritzker, who won the governor's office with strong backing from organized labor, agreed to grant regular pay increases to state workers represented by AFSCME. The back raises, which the workers haven't received since 2015, are expected to cost the state as much as $381 million, according to the governor's office.

dpetrella@chicagotribune.com

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