- Drawing a huge union outcry, Mayor Rahm Emanuel Tuesday proposed freezing pension increases for retirees, raising the retirement age and hiking employees’ retirement contributions. a move that he said would keep the city’s underfunded pension systems solvent and avert a property-tax hike of as much as 150 percent.
“The moment of truth has arrived,” Emanuel told the Illinois House as he outlined the bitter pill that union leaders have long anticipated.
Making his first trip to the statehouse as mayor, Emanuel made his own pitch for pension reform, lending a powerful voice to pension scale-backs sought at the state level by Gov. Pat Quinn and top lawmakers before the General Assembly is set to end its spring session by month’s end.
But the mayor’s push threatened to set back his tenuous relationship with labor unions, whose leaders criticized him Tuesday for breaking his word by failing to brief them about his plan ahead of time and engaging in scare tactics meant to alarm city workers and taxpayers.
As noted, Rahm backdoored the unions by shutting them out of the entire process. He also engages in bullshit scare tactics by threatening to raise property taxes when nothing is stopping him from using "red light camera" fines or proceeds from the sale of Midway to shore up obligations - contractual obligations he and the City Council refuse to meet despite signed agreements.