Workers rights: It’s a start

When the midterm vote was certified this month – the Illinois State Board of Elections said the Workers’ Rights Amendment received 2,212,999 yes votes out of 3,768,929 votes on the measure for a 58.72% approval of the total vote – emotions oddly bounced between two old pop songs: the Beatles’ “Long and Winding Road” and Chicago’s “Beginnings” (AKA “Only the Beginning”).

The sometimes difficult and treacherous path led to victory, but other obstacles may arise.

Hopefully, Illinoisans won’t be discouraged by new challenges.

After all, at least it’s a start.

The constitutional amendment voters approved was accepted by the state, but its wealthy and powerful opponents haven’t conceded its effects.

The 119-word amendment guarantees the right of employees to bargain over “wages, hours, and working conditions, and to protect their economic welfare and safety at work,” and prohibits the passage of any state or local law “that interferes with, that negates, or diminishes” that right. That includes the so-called Right-To-Work laws, which in more than 20 states prohibit contracts between employers and unions that require union membership as a condition of employment.

Amendment foes are probably going to dispute a few aspects of the amendment, such as who’s considered  an “employee” under the amendment, the amendment’s relationship to state and federal law, and what’s considered “economic welfare” or “safety at work.”

The former question  by business groups ties to the gig economy, such as ride-share drivers, or to “independent contractors,” whose compensations doesn’t include Social Security or other benefits employees get.

Supporters of the amendment have pointed to such working people – plus some misnamed “managers” or farm workers who haven’t been covered by labor law -- as people who could gain protections under the new amendment.

Opponents argue that independent contractors aren’t employees, but there’s a disputed definition and enforcement that the National Labor Relations Board recently addressed by urging a better definition to avoid employers misclassifying the status.

Much of the “Vote No” effort involved the conservative Illinois Policy Institute and it’s allied Liberty Justice Center, which months ago sued to keep the referendum off the ballot, asserting it would be unconstitutional, taking powers from the federal government.

That failed, but the Liberty Justice Center — the anti-union outfit that helped ex-Gov. Bruce Rauner successfully get the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the precedent of requiring public employees represented by unions to pay a portion of labor costs if they decline to be members — may return to the courts to resist the voters’ will in a judiciary now topped by a conservative, if not anti-union, majority on the Supreme Court.

Responding to a Chicago Tribune questioning about opponents’ claims that the amendment could be interpreted to mean new bargaining issues, Marc Poulos – executive director of the Indiana, Illinois and Iowa Foundation for Fair Contracting who helped draft the amendment – said the idea isn’t to create “a massive expansion of all kinds of mandatory subjects of bargaining.”

Instead, the amendment clarifies current mandatory subjects — wages, hours and working conditions — “with a wider lens than they do today,” said Marc Poulos, who spoke to the Labor Paper about the state Supreme Court race before the midterms.

The amendment should prevent business interests from coming to the legislature to try to decrease or destroy workers rights, he said.

“The overarching objective through this amendment is to get people to go to the bargaining table and get them to stop going to Springfield,” he told the Tribune. “We think the best place to do this is in bargaining.”