By Matt Simonette

Staff writer

Gay and lesbian employees of Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White’s office who receive domestic partner benefits, and who are also members of the Service Employees International Union, will soon be entitled to take bereavement leave.

According to White’s office, the benefit, already available to non-union state employees, was inadvertently left out when the last SEIU contract was negotiated.

Rick Garcia, political director of Equality Illinois, said an SEIU member in the Secretary of State’s office emailed him and said that she did not have bereavement leave as one of her domestic partner benefits.

Garcia assured the woman that the she did indeed have the benefit, but followed up with the Secretary of State’s office anyway. He consulted with Ellen Meyers, in the Secretary of State’s office, who also thought the benefit was in place. Close inspection of the SEIU’s last contract, however, revealed that the benefit was indeed not included.

Coincidentally, SEIU contracts were in the process of being renegotiated, and the benefit was swiftly inserted into the new package, according to Garcia.

“There was no resistance at all. The Secretary’s office thought everything was fine. When they learned it wasn’t, it was quickly fixed,” Garcia said. “As an activist, I wish everything was so easy.”

The SEIU contracts had not yet been signed as of press time, but the bereavement benefit—three days’ leave in the event of the death of a domestic partner—is “a done deal,” according to Meyers.

Dave Drucker, a spokesman for White, said, “I believe (the Secretary of State’s Office was) the first in the state government to have domestic partner benefits in place, so we were glad that this could be added in.”

In a statement, White said, “We’ve taken this initiative because it’s the right thing to do. Equality is an important part of life in this office.”

Garcia said that, though this complication was relatively easy to fix, the fact that the benefit had slipped through the cracks demonstrated that domestic partner benefits are not enough to ensure equality for all Illinoisans.

“What this points to is that, without equal marriage rights in our state, there is going to be disparity. There would be no problem (in this situation) if gay people were allowed to marry each other,” Garcia said.