On March 6, the Illinois Labor Relations Board certified the Illinois Federation of Public Employees (IFPE) as the collective bargaining representative of 155 public service administrators (PSAs) after Gov. Rod Blagojevich agreed to voluntarily recognize the group.

The new statewide unit is composed of public service administrators working as site managers at state parks for the Department of Natural Resources’ divisions of forestry and fisheries, site managers for the Historic Preservation Agency and a small group of supervisors in various bureaus of the Department of Agriculture.

Sixty-nine percent of the unit’s members had formally declared they wanted a union and signed showing of interest cards, which paved the way for the election-less “majority interest” certification by the Illinois labor board.

It’s the IFPE’s first supervisory unit.

The organizing victory among workers in this unit occurred 16 years ago, notes Gary Leach, IFPE executive director, when PSAs at Natural Resources led the fight for bargaining rights and forged an association with the IFPE under the banner Park Superintendents Professional Association (PSPA).

Committed to the pursuit of gaining bargaining rights—and a voice on the job—for the group of supervisors, the IFPE has included a PSPA representative on the union’s executive committee ever since.

“With budget problems and all the other issues that the state is facing, it couldn’t have come at a better time,” says Neil Booth, PSPA president and an IFPE area vice president.

The union wasted no time gearing up for the unit’s first contract, holding membership meetings across the state immediately following certification of the unit.

PSA issues range from pay and health benefits to professional standards and overtime, says Booth, who manages 25,000 acres of wetlands as a site superintendent at the Mississippi River State Fish and Wildlife Area at the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers.

Over the years, Booth explains, state professionals with collective bargaining steadily got pay raises, which was not always the case for PSAs, who are in the merit compensation system.

“You go two-and-a-half years without a pay raise, you’ve lost a lot of ground,” says Booth, a 36-year veteran with the agency. “Most folks are concentrating on just getting a living wage.”

Moreover, Booth says that because of the lack of overtime pay and collectively bargained job protections, nonsupervisory staff haven’t wanted to move into the PSA positions. That lack of interest, he says, has kept “institutional knowledge” from moving up the hierarchy of state government.