How AFSCME's demands invited the Janus case

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Several years ago, a supervisor at the Illinois Department of Revenue made the mistake of working extra hours to reduce a backlog of tax returns. AFSCME filed a grievance. Why? She had violated a clause in the union’s contract by doing “bargaining unit” work. The union also filed complaints against volunteers at veterans homes who were giving their time, for free, to answer phones and welcome visitors. They were intruding on union workers’ turf.

The grievances were upheld through an arbitration process in Illinois that favors unions, not management. Embedded in public employee union psyche, that process codifies inefficiency in government. It’s coveted.

And taxpayers are on the hook. The union advocates for tax hikes and government growth — last year’s 32 percent income tax hike and now a proposed graduated income tax — to shore up its strength to the detriment of Illinoisans en masse. All those years of unbalanced state budgets and shortchanged pension funds? AFSCME, an ally of the Democratic majority, was an enabler.

On the political side, the union is an operative in political campaigns. Its leaders interview and endorse candidates up and down the ballot. They provide staff for petition-gathering and campaign strategy. They dump cash into dozens of races. They coordinate with other unions and political party officials to elect and defeat candidates.

Rent-seeking gone really wild...