<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1666383449724,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000017a-8cb2-d416-ad7a-beb7278f0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1666383449724,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000017a-8cb2-d416-ad7a-beb7278f0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_66194821", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1121088"} }); ","_id":"00000183-fc31-da74-a1bf-feb185f20000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedDemocrats are widely expected to lose in the Nov. 8 midterm elections. But Illinois Democrats seem a bit too panicky even for that.
They have placed on this year’s ballot a state constitutional prohibition on any law that “interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively.”
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Among other things, this would prevent “right-to-work” laws — laws that give workers the choice of whether to join labor unions. That is why unions hate them.
Increasingly irrelevant to the modern workforce, labor unions and their well-paid executives are desperately looking for ways to survive and keep feasting at the expense of ordinary workers. In California, they have tried to destroy the nonunion gig economy, forge workers’ signatures, and illegally squeeze money for political activity out of nonmembers. Throughout the Midwest, with collusion from Democratic politicians, they tried to skim from the Medicaid checks of indigent, homebound patients and skim from the paychecks of unwilling day care workers.
But their new scheme in Illinois has to be the strangest yet. For if Illinois Democrats really believe the voters are about to elect a state legislative majority and a governor who supports right-to-work or any other union-weakening measures, then they know something about the coming election that we do not. The implication is that Democrats must be facing a nationwide shellacking beyond most people’s imagination.
To be sure, right-to-work isn’t the only issue here. Part of the rationale of this measure, Amendment One, is to prevent reforms like the one Republicans enacted successfully in Wisconsin. Former Gov. Scott Walker (R) and the Republican legislature that had been elected in 2010 reformed the collective bargaining process in taxpayers’ favor. Ultimately, Wisconsin restored to its elected officials the power to make choices about employee compensation, taking power away from union bosses by limiting the public sector unions’ collective bargaining power. Democrats were ferociously opposed when it passed and even stormed the state capitol, intimidating lawmakers and causing damage to property, Jan. 6-style.
But after the measure passed, cities and school districts across the Badger State began realizing incredible savings in their budgets thanks to the reforms. According to a study released this spring, Act 10 has saved Wisconsin’s state and local governments and public schools more than $15 billion since its enactment in 2011 — almost as much as the state spends in two years. Walker’s reforms have become so popular that Democrats do not even dare propose repealing them.
Illinois Democrats don’t want to see that happen to their state. It’s a threat to their absolute power.
If Democrats were more interested in strengthening their state’s fiscal position and economy and less interested in increasing their own political power at all costs, they would let the future happen. Taxpayers are tired of being fleeced by public sector unions, and private sector workers deserve a choice of whether to join unions at all. Both aspirations are a fundamental matter of fairness.
Right-to-work, it should be noted, is better for the economy. Since 2012, the year before the last current right-to-work state was created, right-to-work states have added new jobs at nearly twice the rate of forced-union states (13% job growth compared to 7%). Their populations have all grown.
Compare that to Illinois, which lost 422,000 net residents between 2013 and 2021 and has fewer jobs today than it did in December 2015, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Illinois is a sovereign state and has the power to set its own labor policies. But it is doing its workers and its taxpaying residents no favors by locking in a rigid, sclerotic, and outdated employment regime that more and more workers are walking away from. Illinois is facing a $75 billion local government pension crisis that legislators would not be able to solve even if they were willing. The last thing they need is to help unions consolidate their power.
Voters should reject Amendment One, lest they reward labor unions for destroying their state’s future.
