How did [Chicago end up paying a union leader] a pension nearly three times his salary? That's where things get interesting. Few labor leaders took city pensions, the Tribune reports, 'until the law was changed in 1991 to base those workers' city pensions on their union salaries instead of their old city paychecks, dramatically boosting the amount they could receive'--a provision that 'became law with no public debate among state legislators and, more importantly, no cost analysis.'

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