It may be bad economic times for most of us, but it's business as usual for public employee unions: The state's largest employee union filed a lawsuit today in an attempt to force Gov. Pat Quinn to dole out raises for 33,000 workers that were scheduled to go into effect on July 1. Quinn moved to block the pay hikes when he made changes last week to the state budget that lawmakers sent him, saying they did not set aside enough money to cover the increases. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees argues Quinn is violating the terms of the union's contract with the state, as well as state and federal equal protection laws. The lawsuit filed late Friday in a Springfield federal court asks to restore the pay increases for workers in 14 different agencies. "AFSCME members do the real work of state government, such as caring for the disabled, preventing child abuse, guarding state prisons and much more," AFSCME Council 31 executive director Henry Bayer said in a...(Read Full Post)