Referendum offers hope for the rich to pay their fair share, but change isn’t inevitable

The notion of increasing taxes on the wealthiest Illinoisans to pay for statewide property tax relief was approved in a statewide advisory referendum in this month’s election. The idea  – imposing a 3% levy on individual income over $1 million – carried 60% of the vote, the Associated Press said.

Popular support for the nonbinding vote may help legislative efforts to put a constitutional amendment on the 2026 ballot to authorize the new “millionaires tax.”

Former Gov. Pat Quinn, head of the committee advocating the tax on the wealthy, said the referendum’s provisions would provide “the largest property tax relief measure in state history.

“For too long, millionaires have been getting tax breaks, and Illinois homeowners have been getting higher and higher property tax bills,” Quinn said. The change would offer “a chance to reform an unfair upside-down tax code and give long-overdue property tax relief to everyday homeowners across the state.”

The Illinois Department of Revenue showed about 77,000 Illinoisans reporting adjusted gross income of more than $1 million annually in 2021, the most recent year available. IDOR estimates that adding a 3% income tax surcharge to net income over $1 million statewide could result in additional tax revenue of $4.5 billion.

Even more everyday Illinoisans probably support such a move, according to Marc Poulos, Executive Director and Counsel for the union-backed Indiana, Illinois and Iowa Foundation for Fair Contracting.

“Getting 60% of the electorate to vote for a measure without any money behind the message suggests that the message probably has more support than what shows in the numbers,” he told the Labor Paper. “I think it’s a genuinely a widely shared view by the 99% that the wealthy don’t pay their fair share. Not that it’s nefarious. Rather, they have the means to pay someone to make sure they take advantage of the various caveats and loopholes that exist in our system.”

Further, it’s not a partisan issue, Poulos added.

“I think the idea of taxing the rich crosses party lines,” he said. “There are voters on both sides of the aisle that believe the wealthy do not pay their fair share. And the wealthy 1% spans from Oprah Winfrey on the left to [Citadel hedge-fund billionaire] Ken Griffin on the right. So, it’s an issue that would draw support from both sides of aisle, something needed in order to obtain 60% of those voting on the measure or the majority of those voting in the election in order to successfully pass a constitutional amendment.

“Although, make no mistake about it, a measure like this would draw formidable opposition from those in the 1%.”

To become law,  the issue would have to be passed by a supermajority of the legislature and then be put on the ballot as a binding question.

In 2014, lawmakers put a similar advisory referendum on the ballot calling for state millionaires to pay 3% on income exceeding $1 million, with proceeds specifically earmarked for schools. Even more voters – 64% -- backed the idea, but it never went farther. And in 2020, voters rejected Gov. Pritzker’s plan to change Illinois’ Constitution to replace the state’s flat 4.95% income individual income tax rate with a sliding scale that would make higher-income taxpayers pay more.

Quinn voiced some optimism, saying, “It gives us a lot of momentum to work with legislators.” But Poulos –active in the successful effort to pass a Workers Rights Amendment for Illinois –  says it’s hardly a done deal.

“The only way it’s feasible is if someone takes up the cause,” Poulos said. “Maybe starting down the barrel of a $3.1 billion structural budget deficit will get the legislature to take up the cause independently. But typically, that doesn’t happen. More often an interest group pushes for a cause and then funds the operation to get the measure passed. In the case of the fair tax proposal, public sector labor largely pushed for the measure with the financial backing of the Governor, but ultimately failed. With the Workers Rights Amendment, labor again took up the fight, and funded the operation, and with a successful outcome. However, with the recent failed fair-tax campaign, I do not see another tax proposal hitting the ballot for a constitutional amendment any time soon.”

 

Two other statewide ballot questions also passed overwhelmingly:

* 72% of voters approved the in vitro fertilization (IVF) ballot question, which became timely after some conservatives sought to limit the procedure after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, and

* 89% approved protecting election workers following threats.

 

Letter Carriers reach T.A., ratification up in the air

Negotiators with the National Association of Letter Carriers, representing almost 200,000 city mail carriers, have come to a Tentative Agreement on a new contract with the U.S. Postal Service.

However, the proposed deal must be ratified by union members, and though a deadline for the vote-by-mail process wasn’t announced, the settlement has provoked some criticism from the rank and file.

The tentative pact includes 1.3% annual general raises from May of last year through Nov. 7, 2026, plus semi-annual Cost of Living increases. According to NALC President Brian Renfroe, if ratified, the proposal would be the largest general wage increase since 2006,

“After almost 20 months of tireless negotiations, we are pleased to reach a fair agreement that rewards our members for their contributions to the Postal Service and their service to the American people," Renfroe said.

Some letter carriers disagree, apparently expecting more.

Representatives from the union’s bargaining team have met in regional town halls for members in Houston (Oct. 27) San Francisco (Oct. 29), Minneapolis-St. Paul (Oct. 31), and Washington D.C. (Nov. 2), and faced opposition.

“We’re going to be aggressive and pro-active” in campaigning against the small hike, said Twin Cities carrier Aaron Hutchison. “Once everyone saw the numbers, the anger and the upset were almost instantaneous. It’s not hard to organize people when they’re already mad.”

In West Central Illinois, Peoria Letter carrier Vic Murrie, a longtime NALC legislative liaison, said he’s optimistic the Tentative Agreement will be approved.

“I think it will be ratified, “said Murrie, who’s also a delegate to the executive board of the Illinois Association of Letter Carriers.

“There’s been some dissension in the ranks, comparing this to UPS [where the Teamsters last year reached a contract providing an average total wage increase of 48% over the next five years]. But that’s apples and dates.

“Looking objectively, going to arbitration, anything could happen. The next contract will be in two years. It’ll get better.”

But in Chicago, Illinois Association of Letter Carriers National Business Agent Mike Caref said the workers could do better if the pact went to arbitration. The law making USPS independent, rather than a federal department, mandates such neutral arbitration when unions and bosses can’t agree.

Caref, an NALC board member, also may challenge Renfroe for the union leadership next year.

Peoria Starbucks broke the law: NLRB

A three-member National Labor Relations Board panel has ordered Starbucks’ Peoria location at Campustown to stop singling out workers because they support unionizing – including recording alleged rule violations or releasing them in the middle of their shifts – and required the coffee shop to post a notice of workers’ right to organize.

That decision was good news in West Central Illinois at a time when two other related events are also significant on a national scale.

For Peoria, the NLRB’s Lauren McFerren, David Prouty and Gwynne Wilcox ruled that Starbucks unlawfully interfered with union activity, agreeing with Administrative Law Judge Paul Bogas’ decision 16 months ago,.

“We’re happy to see the NLRB continue to stand up for workers and our legal right to organize,” Starbucks barista and union activist Michelle Eisen said in a prepared statement. “At the same time, we’re focused on the future and are proud to be charting a new path with the company.”

In 2022, workers at the Starbucks location on West Main Street were the second Starbucks workers in Illinois to unionize with the Workers United/Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Campustown Starbucks workers went out on a 7½- hour strike on May 14, 2022.

The Labor Board is also requiring Starbucks to make whole a barista for illegally sending her home, removing from company files references to “unlawful written warnings” to two workers, and to cease and desist actions such as those taken by a store manager and regional manager at the Campustown site.

Meanwhile, negotiations between Starbucks and Workers United for a national collective bargaining agreement have been continuing since spring.

“Workers United and Starbucks continue to make progress on the foundation framework,” said Molly Nuñez, a Vice President at BerlinRosen, a political consultant firm. “[The parties] have met at the bargaining table monthly since April and have meetings scheduled for November and December. The goal is still to finish the framework by the end of the year.”

Elsewhere, another NLRB order has found Starbucks liable for back pay for unionized workers at hundreds of stores whose hours were cut without the corporation bargaining about it — and the federal agency wants the coffee chain to pay affected workers for the wages and benefits they would have otherwise earned.

The Board’s General Counsel on Oct. 10 filed a complaint saying that Starbucks made the scheduling changes in late 2022 and early 2023 without consulting the union. Changing pay and schedules generally can’t be altered without negotiating once employees unionize.

“The NLRB recently moved to the complaint stage on a combined case regarding scheduling changes for 8,000 baristas and shift supervisors across 300 stores,” said Molly Nunez, with the BerlinRosen PR firm. “By the estimate of attorneys for Workers United, the NLRB's make-whole remedy on hours alone would cost Starbucks more than $30 million, conservatively.”

Eisen, the Starbucks barista, added, “This complaint is a significant move by the NLRB impacting roughly 8,000 union-represented partners. The board’s complaint backs up the concerns baristas and shift supervisors have shared time and time again regarding understaffing in our stores. We're pleased to see the NLRB take bold action to support working people.”

Starbucks workers’ nationwide organizing campaign started in 2021, and currently, workers at some 500 U.S. Starbucks locations have joined the union since late 2021. For years, baristas have accused the company of conducting an aggressive anti-union response, cutting wages and benefits, closing stores, firing workers and so one to block unionizing. NLRB judges have issued dozens of decisions that Starbucks has violated workers’ rights.

See hard times ahead? Have some hope.

There are good reasons to be hopeful.

First, don’t overstate the claim of a mandate. Consider the numbers. As this is written, the tally is 78.5 million votes for Donald Trump (49.9%) and 76.2 million votes for Kamala Harris (48.4%). That’s the closest victory since Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey in 1968 by 0.7%.

And, again, more than 76 million Americans didn’t vote for Trump (even more if the 2.6 million votes for others are included).

Nevertheless, some venting can be healthy:

* “A massive number of people across the nation did not find it disqualifying a candidate is a convicted criminal [who] spews racist and sexist rhetoric, spreads lies and conspiracies, and wants to punish his political enemies. And I know I am leaving some things out.” – Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times

* “Among the many disappointments is knowing that all of his crimes, lies, gaslighting, narcissism, bigotry and greed weren’t punished on Election Day, but rewarded. Bad guys aren’t supposed to win, and he is without question a bad guy.” – conservative columnist S.E. Cupp

* “It is a disastrous revelation about what the United States really is, as opposed to the country that so many hoped that it could be. A convicted felon, a chronic liar who mismanaged a deadly once-in-a-century pandemic, who tried to overturn the last election and unleashed a violent mob on the nation’s Capitol, who calls America ‘a garbage can for the world,’ and who threatens retribution against his political enemies could win.” – Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker

* “The nation witnessed a vast and majestic spectacle: the American people participating in a democratic election to strike a blow against democracy. Enjoying the powers entrusted to them by the Constitution of the United States, they elected a man to be president who is no more willing to abide by it than he is to shave his head.” – Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune

* “We all deserve a moment to curl up in the fetal position. But when that moment is over, I want to do what I can to make life better for my children and grandchildren (not to mention people I don’t happen to be related to). Remaining silent and surrendering to despair is exactly what fascists want us to do. So let’s not.” – humorist Andy Borowitz

* “Setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable. We all get knocked down, but the measure of our character – as my dad would say – is how quickly we get back up.” – President Joe Biden

* “The election of Donald Trump is a gut punch for Americans committed to unity, equality and workers’ rights. Eight years ago when he was first elected, many of us were paralyzed by our grief over the direction of this country. As we face those same emotions today, we cannot let our grief hold us back from action. We know Trump’s playbook; we can and we will organize to defeat it.” - Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO President April Sims and Secretary Treasurer Cherika Carter

* “Here’s what we know: We don’t really know anything, and that we’re going to come out of this election and we are going to make all kind of pronouncements about what this country is and what this world is, and the truth is, we’re not really going to know shit, and we’re going to make it seem like this is the finality of our civilization. And this is the thing — we are all going to have to wake up tomorrow morning and work like hell to move the world to the place that we prefer it to be.” – comic Jon Stewart

* “You can’t despair, Because that’s what they want. They want you to think that it’s hopeless. It’s never hopeless.”  - Timothy Snyder, Yale professor and author of On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20^th Century

I lived in Washington, D.C., in 1984 during a campaign that resulted in a genuine landslide: Ronald Reagan beat Walter Mondale 58.8% to 37.5%. Even then, with the Iran-Contra scandal brewing and 3.8% inflation almost twice the Federal Reserve’s goal, Democrats retook control of Congress two years later.

Retaining democracy and recovering progress aren’t inevitable. It can be difficult.

A few final quotes:

* (This exchange is about baseball, but it can apply to opposing authoritarians)

“It just got too hard,” said a player thinking of giving up.

A one-time all-star and manager replied, “It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”

* “It’s time to think up ideas to implement the sign on the Oregon AFL-CIO’s wall during Trump’s first term: ‘Resist. Persist. Repeat’.”

* Finally, the inspiring advice from lifelong activist John Lewis, a civil rights champion, friend of labor and Congressman –

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Public media need more funding from gov’t, less from corporations - plus better governance and imagination: new report and critics

Days after Peoria's WCBU-FM 89.9’s October fund-raising drive missed its goal, the Community Word reached out to Peoria’s public radio and public television operations for responses to a recent report about the financial state of public media and the difficulties there.

Public media is increasingly relevant at a time of fewer newspapers and smaller staffs, but funding is inadequate, according to the newest report from the Center for Study of Responsive Law, which asserts that funding has become so insufficient in supporting local news reporting that it needs an overhaul.

The report – subtitled “The Case for a Democratically Funded and Locally Rooted News Media

in an Era of Newsroom Closures” – was written by researcher Michael Swerdlow. It says that National Public Radio (NPR), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB, which helps fund PBS), and local public stations are failing short in their missions as established by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.

In fact, National Public Radio’s first program director, Bill Siemering, in 1970 said, “National Public Radio will not regard its audience as a ‘market’ or in terms of disposable income…”

Since, however, an increasing challenge to compensate for inadequate and uncertain funding has led to a reliance on wealthy donors and corporations, whose legal duty is to generate profits for shareholders, not to help provide people with high-quality journalism and cultural features. That’s a built-in conflict, if usually benign or beneath the surface.

Public media has “become a ‘market,’ with all that such commercialization entails for its programming priorities and biases, Swerdlow writes.

In an introduction to the 84-page study, longtime consumer advocate Ralph Nader writes that since the late 1960s, “things only got more commercial, profit-driven, and violative of the Communications Act of 1934 standard of providing for the ‘public interest, convenience and necessity’ information needs of viewers and listeners.

“Our report is designed to spark support to return public media to its original public-interest mission and decrease corporate domination on its national and local station Boards of Directors. We’re trying to provoke some discussion. [Public media] need to be shaken up. They live in fear: fear of losing money, fear of the lobbies.”

There have been several similar studies in recent years, from the Nieman Foundation in 2019 and 2023, to last year’s collaborative study from a group of public-media stations, to this year’s effort from the CDP (Contributor Development Partnership).

WCBU Executive Director/General Manager R.C. McBride replies, “I’m all for ideas, and more importantly, actual advances.

 “As for this specific paper, I have some nits to pick,” adds McBride, who’s also GM at WGLT in Normal, “but it’s probably not worth it since I have no doubt it’s an earnest offering from well-intentioned, smart people.”

The new report recommends several reforms:

* adequate and stable funding; “Congress could make funding for journalism part of mandatory spending,” Swerdlow writes, suggesting that funding be “authorized on an indefinite basis” like Social Security and Medicare,’

* representative governance boards,

* information transparency, and

* public deliberations about communities’ news and informational needs.

 

An outside voice with roots in public TV stressed the latter – what’s on the air.

“I get it: Audiences are dwindling, membership is down, and every station leader faces enormous challenges in simply maintaining what they’re doing today,” comments Tom Davidson, a former reporter and manager at PBS and other news organizations.

“I am not suggesting that we should all drop everything we’re doing to chase after foundation dollars,” he said. “I am suggesting that maybe it’s time to admit that what we’ve already done isn’t really helping fix the local-news crisis.

“Being the fourth microphone on a podium at a mayor’s press conference isn’t filling gaps,” he says. “Regurgitating a non-profit’s news release into a 40-second reader isn’t covering under-served communities. And pleading for cash to slightly grow our traditional coverage isn’t digital innovation. Re-imagine instead of muddling through.”

Swerdlow connects the loss of newspapers and journalists in all media in the last 20 years to the effect on civic life, and he details the extent of the lack of government support.

 “Democracy in the United States requires an informed citizenry,” Swerdlow says. “Factual, verified information and news analysis are its lifeblood. National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting face financial and governance challenges that leave them unable to fill the void.”

The United States funds its public media at a much lower rate than peer countries, the report shows.

“The United States spends $3 per person, New Zealand spends $21, Canada spends $33, Australia $53, Japan spends $67, the U.K. spends $97, and Germany spends 41 times more at $124.46,” the report states.

The report compares where public media fit within the federal budget.

“The U.S. spends about $50 million more a year on our 136 military marching bands than the entire public broadcasting system,” Swerdlow writes.

Currently a political pinata “deprived of adequate public funding as a result of Republican antagonism and Democratic acquiescence,” boosting government funding could be problematic. As much of a concern with conflicts of interest with corporate underwriters is a potential conflict between public media’s independence and a greater dependence on government funding.

WTVP-TV 47 President and CEO Jenn Gordon says, “I would welcome an increase in government funding as certainly it would strengthen the stability of the station. However, it doesn't follow that the other sources of revenue like corporate support, member donations and fundraising activities should take a back seat. I think it would be dangerous if they ever did regardless of any increase of government funding.

“The CPB was founded on the private/public funding model. Both sources are incredibly important and neither one should be devalued at the expense of overemphasizing the other. I do think an increase in government funding could meaningfully improve the news-desert crisis happening in nearly every small to mid-sized station in the country.”

Gordon also takes issue with the possibility that some financial backers could pose conflicts with content or operations.

“I disregard the notion that corporate support and private funding innately puts the organization at risk for compromising their ability to remain unbiased,” she said. “Solid leaders stick to the mission and are willing to forego any private funding sources that come with a series of demands. Yes, there are going to be times when private donations shrink. And there will be seasons when they boom. Bottom line, both are important and essential.”

McBride, who’s also a member of NPR’s Board of Directors, also values a wide funding scope.

“I think public media is best served by a model that combines funding from a variety of sources: local businesses, individual donors of all sizes, government appropriations and grants, corporate support, and foundation grants and gifts. In other words, what exists now,” he says. “That said, it is clear we need to grow revenue to do what’s being increasingly asked of public media. The percentage of local journalists working for public media has never been higher and that trend will continue. All the luck in the world to journalists still working in commercial media, but there just aren’t enough of them.”