In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in 3rd District Court, the Utah Public Employees Association and five unnamed state workers are trying to block implementation of a controversial piece of legislation that will end a long-standing sick-leave program. The complaint claims state leaders have breached their contract with state workers.

Meantime, one angry state employee is agitating for a strike the week of July 25.

Earlier this year, state lawmakers adopted House Bill 213, which changes a 20-year-old policy that allows Utah's 25,000 workers to trade 8 hours of unused sick leave for a month of post-retirement medical benefits. Jan. 1, that program will end. Some employees stand to lose years of promised medical benefits and are considering retiring early to collect the medical coverage.

Legislators originally adopted the sick-leave policy in the 1980s in an attempt to compensate for low state salaries. But as medical costs have risen, lawmakers feared a looming, estimated $200 million liability for employee retirement benefits. So, they cut the program.

"State employees have forgone substantially better employment opportunities in the local government and in the private sector, in reliance upon the treatment of their unused sick leave," the lawsuit states. "The State of Utah now seeks to change the rules."

In an unsigned letter handed out to legislators last week, a state employee urges other workers to call in sick the last week in July.

"Many of us hung in there and faithfully performed our duties when there were no raises," the employee writes. "Now 20 to 30 years later, the state of Utah has become a liar and a thief and cannot be trusted."

UPEA Director Audry Wood e-mailed a letter to state employees urging them to disregard the call for a strike, which could be grounds for firing. She is sympathetic to the worker's feelings of betrayal, but says a strike would undermine UPEA's efforts to work with state leaders.

"We've never done job actions before," Wood said. "It's counterproductive to our efforts. All it does is create antagonism."

After Jan. 1, 2006, state workers will be required to deposit 25 percent of the value of their saved sick leave into a 401(k) account and the rest could be traded for medical benefits, but at a reduced rate.

When lawmakers adopted the bill, sponsoring Santa Clara Republican Rep. Dave Clark said, "This has become a benefit I wish we could afford to keep. But financially, we would be remiss if we don't address this problem right now before it becomes a crisis."

UPEA attorney Ben Hathaway says lawmakers based their decision to adopt the bill on unofficial estimates, rather than waiting for an actuary to pin down the state's liability next year.

"They thought this was a rich retirement benefit that would result in huge savings to the state," Hathaway said. "Largely without really knowing all of the facts, they made a decision they thought was in the budgetary interests of the state."

After quickly and quietly signing the bill before the end of the 2005 Legislature, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. one month ago belatedly tried to intervene and persuade the employees not to sue. After several meetings with UPEA representatives, the governor was unable to stop the lawsuit. Hathaway said those meetings will continue.

"We're hopeful we're making progress," he said. "No doors have been slammed. We just have this Jan. 1 deadline we're worried about."