ISEA/Professionals

Historical Perspective 1973-1977
Illinois State Employees Association

The Illinois State Employees Association (ISEA) was founded in 1923 as an independent labor organization exclusively for state employees.

In 1973 ISEA had over 8200 dues paying members in all counties of the state. ISEA had an "open" membership with any state employee eligible for membership. ISEA had a President, Executive Board, Board of Directors, chapter system along with an Executive Director with professional and support staff.

EXECUTIVE ORDER #6/1973

Keeping a political campaign pledge, the recently elected Governor Dan Walker (D) created an Executive Order #6, which allowed state employees to bargain collectively for wages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment with the Department of Personnel.

Executive Order #6 established a three member Collective Bargaining Board and an office of Collective Bargaining to implement, structure and oversee all aspects of state employee collective bargaining for 62,000 Illinois State employees. Although supposedly impartial, the Board members were political appointees of the Governor and the Board's Executive Director and staff was not viewed as acceptable to ISEA's interests under the political situation ISEA found itself in having supported and endorsed Governor Walker's opponent in the election in 1972. ISEA sued challenging the legality of Executive Order #6 but lost the suit and was then branded by competing unions as being opposed to all forms of collective bargaining, which did not accurately reflect ISEA's position. This was not properly clarified to all state employees and ISEA members.

THE RC-14 ELECTION (1975-76)

During 1975, ISEA had targeted as its major priority a 14,000 member horizontal (involving multiple departments of state government) unit of clerical and office staff/para professionals and subsequently petitioned for as the RC-14 bargaining unit.

ISEA solicited collective bargaining authorization cards through a program of computerized mailings, supporter programs, staff solicitations, referral solicitations, and direct hand to had distribution of post paid collective bargaining cards and recognition petitions as work sites. At the beginning of the campaign slightly more than 10% of the RC 14 bargaining unit were members of ISEA.

ISEA increased staff size to over 22 paid staff (both full and part time) in two primary locations: Springfield (the capitol) and Cook County-Chicago (the primary state employee concentration in Illinois). The staff was responsible for both organizing and servicing.

Both ISEA and AFSCME were campaigning in similar manners for the RC 14 unit throughout Illinois at the same time. ISEA had a perceived advantage in downstate Illinois, while in Chicago AFSCME enjoyed a clear advantage. Many RC 14 bargaining unit members signed cards for both ISEA and AFSCME and ISEA was able to obtain the 30% valid CB cards necessary to file an RC petition with the SLRB. ISEA filed the 30% showing of interest and AFSCME immediately intervened with the requisite 10% showing of interest necessary for intervention.

After protracted hearings before the Board involving the usual questions of:

Bargaining unit structure

Inclusion and exclusion of classifications

Type of election (on site)*

Voting periods

Voting sites *

Voting judges

* AFSCME gained a distinct advantage in this area due to its internationals monitoring and staffing support, manpower, experience and finances and by having their strong hold's selection as voting sites with obvious later results. This reflected a major failure on the part of ISEA's Cook County staff, as ISEA would later learn.

ISEA then began a concerted campaign for the election, which was scheduled over a two-week period; first in downstate Illinois and ending in Cook County. During this critical campaign period ISEA discovered and identified serious weaknesses in its campaign and program along with detrimental activities by the ISEA Chicago Staff involving:

ISEA learned that our mailings, many of which were 3rd class, were being held up or destroyed in the Chicago post office.
ISEA's phone contact system was inadequate with many wrong numbers.
Most voting locations looked like AFSCME campaign headquarters with a staff rep assigned to that building and a strong pro-AFSCME employee group present.
ISEA learned that a majority of its paid Chicago staff was not committed to working for an ISEA victory in the RC 14 elections.
1. When resistance was encountered to ISEA's message the staff left and/or became defensive.
2. Some staff refused to work and other apparently drove to offices, left literature, making only a superficial attempt to organize and campaign for ISEA's election.
3. Staff conducts discouraged ISEA's members and their commitment to work for an ISEA victory.
4. Some staff committed fraud and misappropriated ISEA funds for personal use.
5. Recommendations were made to terminate the majority of the Cook County Staff but it was too late in the campaign and ISEA was forced to re-deploy its downstate staff to also work in Cook County, which limited and weakened ISEA's efforts statewide.
6. ISEA lost the RC 14 BU election while obtaining approximately 40% of the vote's cast, which were votes of approximately 60% of the eligible voters.

THE RC 29 ELECTION (1976-77)

During 1976, ISEA continued it's organizing efforts with state employees. To this point ISEA had yet to win a collective bargaining election although AFSCME has won three collective bargaining elections in which ISEA had been a challenger in two of those elections. ISEA was aware of AFSCME's organizing drive in a 1200 member horizontal unit of police security and inspection unit subsequently petitioned for as the RC 29 bargaining unit. ISEA solicited collective bargaining authorization cards through computerized mailing, staff solicitations, and direct member hand-to-hand distribution of post paid CB cards.

ISEA had a strong existing membership in concentrated "high number" classifications within the RC 29 BU. Although ISEA's staff was now reduced to 5 paid staff, a dedicated membership cadre worked with staff and assisted in organizing the RC 29 BU. AFSCME filed the 30% showing of interest and ISEA immediately intervened with over 25% showing of interest. Now, due to the experience of the Board, more expedited hearings were held and resulted in:

A mail ballot election format being chosen
A bargaining unit structure determined that was more favorable than that initially petitioned for by AFSCME

ISEA continued to maintain a comprehensive and concrete campaign through election day consisting of:

Bi-weekly phone contact with each voter
Bi-weekly first class mailings on Thursday for Saturday arrival and Friday for Monday arrival of:
1. Informational, collective bargaining endorsement, and other general mailings.
2. And specific piece mailings to "high number" classifications such as police officers, conservation police officers, security officers, truck weigh men, agriculture inspectors, and all other major classification groups to show ISEA's specific interest in them and their concerns.
For the first time a formal organizing and advisory committee of the bargaining unit members was established which greatly assisted ISEA in issue coverage, intelligence gathering on AFSCME's activities, and through specific photo/print endorsements of whole departments and highly regarded individuals. This caused a commitment of members and non-members to ISEA based upon our commitment to the member and his or her best interests.
Representational activities on behalf of RC 29 bargaining unit members were directed at major member problems.
1. Literally hundreds of grievances were handled during this period by ISEA staff.
2. Salary upgrades were filed for all employees, including non-members to emphasize their stake in ISEA success and almost invariably the non-member who realized the service and benefit of ISEA would join.
By this time AFSCME was publicly experiencing a great deal of negative member backlash due to:
1. Having been charged by numerous members and non-members with unfair labor practices for breaching its duty of fair representation and not assisting its membership in their grievances (this situation continues to date).
2. Having misled its members by consolidating bargaining unit negotiations in a cost cutting move which acted against the best interest of the employees
3. Through its now reduced staff, AFSCME assumed a high-handed manner and antagonized RC 29 BU members
4. During this period, the professionalism of ISEA's members, staff, program was emphasized in contract to the now self-evident problems AFSCME was experiencing.
During the RC 29 election ISEA won over 72% of the voting BU members.