Illinois’ Workers Rights Amendment 8 months later

After considerable time and treasure were spent last summer and fall to successfully campaign to amend the state’s constitution with “Amendment 1” – the Workers Rights Amendment – it’s not unreasonable to wonder whether the effort was worth it.

Eight months since 21 million voters cast ballots in favor of the amendment, the effect of its passage and the extent to which it’s valuable is unclear.

About 58% of ballots on Nov. 8 supported the addition of Illinois workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively about wages, hours and working conditions, and also “to protect their economic welfare and safety at work,” to prohibit any law forbidding labor agreements to require represented workers to share in the costs of representations (“Right To Work” laws), and possibly to change the U.S. Supreme Court ruling [in “Janus”] that public employees need not share in their unions’ costs for bargaining and enforcing contracts benefiting the.

Up to $16 million in campaign contributions may have been spent on the campaign, but it’s difficult to account for all the opposition dollars because a lot of money was spent on communications through 501(c)4 tax-exempt “social welfare” nonprofits, which can lobby for political issues, unlike traditional charities organized as 501(c)3’s, and can donate millions of dollars with little transparency.

Nevertheless, “$16 million is a small price to pay to ensure workers now have the fundamental right to collectively bargain and to ensure Illinois will never be a Right-To-Work state,” said Marc Poulos, Executive Director of the Indiana, Illinois and Iowa Foundation for Fair Contracting, and a member of Operating Engineers Local 150 who was active in the campaign to pass the WRA.

“Helping to cement Illinois’ pro-worker policy for current and future generations of workers is priceless,” he continued. “This was probably one of the most important victories for workers Illinois has ever seen.”

Thus far, it’s hard to say whether the WRA has made a difference is discouraging union-busting by employers or encouraging better labor relations with groups of workers.

“The full value is still yet to be seen,” Poulos said. “There are still a lot of discussions regarding how this will be implemented. Certainly, public-sector union members will see a great benefit in that the government cannot diminish, negate, or interfere with various subjects of bargaining. I’m not sure how many laws were introduced this session that would have arguably diminished, negated, or interfered with collective bargaining rights, but it is something that should be on every public-sector union’s radar. It very well may have helped curb certain anti-worker legislation.”

If there’s no explicit use of the WRA yet, it may be because it’s still new – and untested.

“There is still a lot of discussion as to whether the amendment is self-enabling or whether we need further legislation to help create a framework under which the amendment can operate,” Poulos told the Labor Paper. “Another piece of it is litigation – case law that helps interpret laws is borne out of litigation, a costly route.”

Indeed, some law firms say there could be opposition lawsuits seeking to neutralize the constitutional amendment. One anti-WRA argument is that it preempts the National Labor Relations Act, which in 1959 the U.S. Supreme Court decided preempts state and local laws. However, the Supreme Court in its recent “Glacier v. Teamsters” decision, ruled 8-1 to defer to Washington state courts a labor dispute under investigation by the National Labor Relations Board.

The WRA is in play in other ways, Poulos said.

“Think about workers like House Speaker Chris Welch’s staff, who are explicitly excluded from the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act [and] would otherwise have no authority under state statute to organize,” he said. “However, encouraged by the passage of the WRA, they have asked for voluntary recognition. Clearly, the WRA has emboldened workers to collectively bargain who would otherwise not have been able to prior to the passage.

“Another value that has emerged is that other states – California and Pennsylvania, for example – have taken notice of what we did in Illinois and are trying to emulate the Workers Rights Amendment in their states.

“There are options by which a worker can use their new constitutional rights,” Poulos added. “They can exercise them in a court of law, especially as a fundamental right. I have not had discussions with either the state Department of Labor or Attorney General Raoul's Workplace Rights Division to know what their plan is to help enforce the new amendment for the workers of Illinois. But certainly, workers can discuss such rights with the AG or Department of Labor.”