CHICAGO (AP) — A fight is brewing over Gov. Bruce Rauner’s decision to end a requirement that Illinois state workers pay union dues even if they don’t want to join a union.
Labor leaders said Tuesday they’re looking into legal options to challenge a federal lawsuit the Republican governor filed against more than two dozen public-employee unions. The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Chicago, seeks to have “fair share” dues declared unconstitutional.
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Meanwhile, union leaders questioned the timing of the lawsuit, which comes days before Rauner is set to deliver his first budget address.
“We have yet to hear one concrete idea about how he’s going to pull out of this fiscal mess,” Montgomery said. “Instead, what he’s done are the most heinous, vicious, misinformed and misleading attacks on working people we’ve certainly ever seen in Illinois.”
