There is room for hope that the state Senate will do the right thing and pass the package of “grand bargain” bills over to the House, where there will be more bargaining and eventually, finally, a budget. But any deal that allows Gov. Bruce Rauner to force a strike by AFSCME workers won’t feel like much of a bargain here. The union wants to meet the governor back at the table, and all area legislators say contract negotiations should resume. A grand bargain without good-faith collective bargaining would leave Springfield under a dark cloud still. –Fletcher Farrar, editor and publisher
This article appears in Mar 2-8, 2017.
