An Illinois public housing authority, which has seen mismanagement and other problems for years, provided generous retirement contracts to employees right before their director left.  Employees that represented the Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 7-7-3, were in negations for their contracts.  The odd process behind it was the retirement agreement, which appears to be different for each employee and seems to have been done outside of the normal process for union employees.  In general, there is an exception that a public-sector employer would only negotiate with a union representative about collective bargaining for union employees and their benefits, according to the Illinois Labor Relations Board general counselor Helen Kim.