I’m wearing black to Springfield as union leadership waves white flag.

“See you in Springfield on Friday. Wearing black?,” asked a retired friend.

Yes. Black in mourning at the unions representing state employees and retirees who are waving the white flag of surrender.

With lawmakers about to return to Springfield for a one-day session on government employee pension reform, a coalition of unions on Monday for the first time publicly said workers would consider paying more toward their retirement.

But the unions’ plan also would require the state to guarantee it will make its full yearly pension contribution instead of skipping or shorting it. And the labor leaders suggested that raising business taxes and avoiding benefit cuts for current retirees should be part of any reform law.

How much more workers would have to pay is open for negotiation, but officials said that if workers in the state’s three major retirement systems contributed 1 percent more, it would raise $186 million a year. They said that could grow to $15 billion by 2047 if invested properly.

The union group’s plan was a nonstarter for Gov. Pat Quinn, who is pushing for a more comprehensive pension overhaul. A Quinn spokeswoman dismissed the suggestions as “nothing new,” adding that the proposal “would not solve the state’s pension challenges, nor is it feasible.”

Union officials say the proposal is a “fair alternative” to the plan that House lawmakers could vote on Friday when they return to the Capitol.

That measure, which already passed the Senate, would require lawmakers and other state employees to take lower cost-of-living increases if they want to keep their state health insurance and have salary increases totaled into their final pension earnings.

Union representatives say the higher cost-of-living adjustments are needed to offset inflation.

With an election looming Nov. 6, others dismissed the union’s move as an attempt to derail any vote for pension reform.

“Passing a bill that takes on the pensions of legislators and state employees wasn’t easy,” said a top aide to Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, who sponsored the measure. “The latest efforts by (unions) should prove that it’s far from politically convenient.”

The decision to offer up more money from teachers who already pay nearly 10% of the earnings to get the state to pay what they have refused to pay for over 50 years is a major cave-in.

It is also an offer that is being ignored by both the Governor and legislative leaders.

The leadership has given in and given up so much and so often that they no longer are to be taken seriously even by the corrupt bunch in Springfield.

A sad day.