Workers’ Rights Amendment will ensure a CHOICE for a VOICE

Recent attacks on the Workers’ Rights Amendment on November’s ballot are flawed or false, claiming it will cost taxpayers, unleash a flood of unionized workplaces, and result in new labor contracts always favorable to workers.

If voters OK the measure Nov. 8, there may indeed be some pent-up demand to organize without illegal retaliation (which says a lot), but the proposed amendment would not guarantee unionization, much less any labor agreements, one-sided or not.

First, if workers unionize, they’d have to bargain, which isn’t easy; law-abiding employers aren’t pushovers. Next, it would do two main things: prevent unscrupulous employers from violating the law, and protect workers’ right to VOTE on representation.

Sometimes a majority of a company’s workers vote to not unionize – but they’d have a CHOICE.

The amendment somewhat echoes federal law, but that’s because the National Labor Relations Act too often ignores or barely punishes law-breakers. Besides, workers don’t want to bankrupt companies. We need employers almost as much as they need us.

And, sure, it’s possible some workers could strike, but employers also could still lock out workers – as Major League Baseball owners did this spring.

Finally, the state legislature in a rare, overwhelming bipartisan vote, last year approved the amendment 80-30 in the House and 49-7 in the Senate, perhaps reflecting the public’s growing respect for labor (shown in Gallup’s recent poll that 71% of us support – the highest approval in 57 years and close to the all-time high of 75% in the 1950s), or recognizing what was confirmed by University of Illinois/ Illinois Economic Policy Institute researchers, as the Labor Paper reported last month. Their study shows that the Workers’ Rights Amendment would improve the state’s economy and ease the financial burden on Illinois taxpayers. Better wages for workers translates to increased state income-tax revenues and less reliance on (and reduced government spending for) social safety-net programs.

But a string of commentaries against the Workers’ Rights Amendment has been distributed by the Illinois Policy Institute.

“Groups like the Illinois Policy Institute, who seek to destroy unions and eliminate our rights, are behind this spreading of misinformation,” Illinois Federation of Teachers Dan Montgomery warned Illinoisans. “They try to tap into your biggest fears and cast doubt on the work we do.”

Funded by $1 million from Richard Uihlein – who the Chicago Tribune describes as a “conservative megadonor and businessman, the CEO of packing and shipping firm Uline” – the Right-wing think tank set up the “Vote No on Amendment 1” campaign.

It’s featured IPI’s Mailee Smith writing, “Amendment 1 is a potential property tax hike in disguise.”

“Disguise”? Workers have no motivation to raise their own taxes, much less to drive their employers out of business.

Elsewhere, IPI’s Adam Schuster stressed Big Business’ fanciful worst-case scenario, writing that the amendment would be “granting the public sector powers to make limitless demands of the public treasury, i.e., taxpayers.”

Nonsense. “Power”? Unions’ political contributions to candidates are dwarfed by corporate donations.

Schuster added that the Workers’ Rights Amendment would be “a back-door way for government unions to control public policy through their contracts [and] the treasury.”

Ridiculous. Citizens can always vote for different politicians to negotiate even more forcefully with public-sector unions.

Such predictions are flimsy scare tactics. If such mouthpieces of the rich and powerful could issue useful, truthful forecasts, where were their essays warning of Russia’s invasion triggering shortages and worldwide inflation, or the dangers of cryptocurrency?

(One can imagine their fear-mongering if they’d been around when women’s right to vote was proposed.)

Once more, the proposed amendment would add a section to the Bill of Rights Article of the Illinois Constitution that would guarantee workers the fundamental right to organize and to bargain collectively and to negotiate wages, hours, and working conditions, and to promote their economic welfare and safety at work. The new amendment would also prohibit from being passed any new law that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively over their wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment and workplace safety.

The Workers’ Rights Amendment will also protect the rights of Illinois workers from being attacked by politicians and special interests pushing anti-worker laws that drive down wages and ignore workplace safety, which could happen, if recent state legislation or court rulings are an indication.

Frank Manzo IV of the competing Illinois Economic Policy Institute noted the uncertainty of what future regimes might do. The vulnerability of existing norms has been shown in actions such as the U.S. Supreme Court’s upending decades of “settled law” on everything from voting rights to the precedent of requiring people benefiting from union contracts to contribute to the costs of representation.

“[It’s] similar to recent decisions on reproductive rights at the Supreme Court level that have taken away rights that have long been held by a certain segment of the population and saying it's kind of up to the states,” he said. “Should that happen for this segment of the population called workers, and rights are taken away at the federal level, or at least removed as being a federal right, or even if Congress were to just get rid of the National Labor Relations Act in a couple months, this [Amendment] would be an answer at the state level.”

A state constitutional amendment would be a safeguard if federal protections are ever repealed.

Opposition would inadvertently signal approval of employers breaking federal laws to discourage workers from even voting for a union.

“Corporations that put profits over people have no shame in revealing who they really are through their heartless union busting, illegal bargaining tactics, and divisive political attacks,” said Robert G. Reiter, President of the Chicago Federation of Labor. “Make no mistake about it, these forces are just wolves in sheep’s clothing. The right to organize and collectively bargain is square in the crosshairs of these anti-worker forces.”

Plan to vote. And share your thoughts with neighbors who aren’t in unions – the Workers’ Rights Amendment would create a guaranteed VOTE and CHOICE for everyday people.

Again, the Workers’ Rights Amendment won’t cost Illinoisans; it will benefit us all.