CHICAGO - The Illinois Labor Relations Board held a special meeting in Chicago Thursday and announced that the governor-appointed board is rejecting Governor Rauner's request to speed up their decision on whether his negotiations with AFSCME are at an impasse.
Rauner's office released the following statement after the announcement:
While we are disappointed in the result, we voluntarily agreed to these impasse proceedings with AFSCME and will continue to respect and follow the Labor Board’s decisions throughout. This will hopefully also put an end to the reprehensible attacks that AFSCME has made against the independence and integrity of the administrative law judge and the Board.
With this ruling, AFSCME and Rauner are expected to return to the negotiating table, despite the contract expiring a year ago. AFSCME insists it doesn't want a strike – so does Rauner's office.
