Illinois Legislative Staff Assoc. releases statement on Speaker Welch not recognizing their union – WAND (Decatur)

“Only eight months ago he publicly referred to efforts to undercut the labor movement as ‘extremist’, and yet that is precisely what he and his aides are now doing.... Our good faith efforts to engage with the Speaker and his aides have been either rebuffed, redirected, or met with stubborn disregard.... We have the legal right to form a union. If there was any doubt of this before, that doubt was removed by the passage of the Workers’ Rights Amendment. Equal protection under the law is a fundamental American value, and the right to organize is the law of the land in Illinois. Speaker Welch should not be able, with impunity, to say one thing in public—when it costs him nothing—while doing the opposite behind closed doors. He should practice what he preaches."