By: Mark Glennon*
Finally, a member of the regular media has called out the fraud being perpetrated over the pending Illinois constitutional amendment that will be on November’s ballot. That’s Amendment 1, the so-called Workers’ Rights Amendment.
Amendment supporters are routinely claiming huge benefits for all Illinois workers would be guaranteed by the new constitutional right the amendment would create to drastically expand collective bargaining rights.
But that’s simply not so, for the reason a new Wall Street Journal editorial states:
The National Labor Relations Act already governs private workers and limits who can bargain about what. Illinois can’t expand the collective-bargaining rights of private employees beyond what federal law allows.
In other words, 86% of Illinois workers – those who work in the private sector – will not be covered by the amendment, despite supporters claims to the contrary.
“Democratic state Sen. Ram Villivalam, who is sponsoring the measure, admitted as much last year,” wrote the WSJ. Amendment 1 “could not apply to the private sector,” Villivalam said on the Illinois Senate floor.
We’ve been writing about the same thing. I emailed Villivalam’s office last week asking for comment on the contradiction between his statement and supporters’ claims. I received no response.
The false claim by amendment supporters is now widespread.
A television ad featuring a private sector nurse talking about the private sector is now running throughout the Chicago area.
A letter in the Chicago Sun-Times by two union chiefs even claimed the amendment would cover private sector workplace safety. The amendment, they wrote, would “ensure that every Illinoisan has access to a safe workplace.”
That’s crazy talk. Workplace safety is covered by OSHA, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act, which is a textbook example of federal preemption that prohibits states from trying to regulate the same field through their constitutions or otherwise.
The big lie is even in the state’s official pamphlet about the amendment that will be printed soon, which contains arguments for and against, the language for which was stipulated by the General Assembly. “This amendment will protect workers’ and others’ safety,” says the argument in favor. Wrong, worker safety is covered by federal OSHA rules; preemption clearly applies. As to what is meant by “others’ safety,” unions would be free to demand pretty much all political matters – anything affecting anybody in the state. The pamphlet’s arguments go on to say the amendment will protect “nurses’ right to put patient care ahead of profit and making sure construction workers can speak up when there’s a safety issue.” Nonsense. That’s covered by federal law and state action in the field is unconstitutional.
The only exceptions where states are allowed to regulate are around the margins, where lawsuits are common – much more litigation can be expected if the amendment passes. Union security agreements may also be regulated by the states, meaning Illinois is free to ban right-to-work efforts, which it already does, and that would be locked in place by the amendment.
What workers would be covered by the amendment?
State and local government workers, that’s who, and that should really have you worried. For them, the state is free to regulate labor matters, and it has done so in great detail.
But Amendment 1 would override all that existing state and local law, replacing it with a sky-is-the-limit constitutional right that has supremacy. Specifically, Amendment 1 would expand eligible collective bargaining subjects to include anything that affects workers’ “economic welfare,” which is pretty much everything, giving government collective bargaining units untold new power.
“If you think teachers unions are powerful now, wait until this passes,” says the Wall Street Journal editorial. The same can be said about the amendment’s power expansion for all public unions in Illinois.
Let’s hope the WSJ editorial sparks a long overdue debate about Amendment 1. So far, Illinois media have all but ignored it.
More importantly, let’s hope voters get educated about the amendment because, as the Wall Street Journal concludes, they “will now have to prevent this union takeover of state government and its dire implications for education and the state economy and public finances.”
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
Earlier Wirepoints articles with more details on Amendment 1:
- Illinois’ biggest fraud on its voters yet is coming in its official description of proposed constitutional amendment
- Are Workers’ Rights Amendment Supporters Lying In Their Ad, Did They Lie To Legislators Or Lie To The Court?
- Amendment 1 Is Illinois Progressives’ Most Frightening Gambit Yet.
- Supporters of Amendment 1 should get their story straight. Latest double-talk is about workplace safety.
- Advancing an amendment to enshrine union power
- Scope Of Pending Illinois Constitutional Amendment Goes Far Beyond Appearances. It’s A Monstrous Giveaway To Public Unions.
- Illinois lawmakers want to cement union powers into the state constitution
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Amendment 1 applies to the private sector in that it stops Right to Work in the private sector.
https://wirepoints.org/amendment-1-has-two-objectives-to-give-massive-new-powers-to-government-unions-and-to-stop-illinois-private-sector-from-going-right-to-work-wirepoints-joins-awake-illinois-on-facebook-liv/#respond
DOA, leave it or love it. Not going to change. So, tuff it out.
A purpose of the amendment, coming-up for a vote in November, is to make it not possible for Illinois to become a right-to-work state. So, it seems the public unions will continue to force their priorities on the voters instead of the other way around. The politicians would logically have to be complicit or govern with a handicap, which is nothing new. My guess is that voters who work in the private sector who belong to unions or favor unions are supposed to think they should vote for this amendment?? There were a few advantages in getting the Fair Tax Amendment defeated. The word… Read more »
Be careful about saying purpose of the amendment is to “is to make it not possible for Illinois to become a right-to-work state.” That’s what supporters like to say is the primary purpose and, yes, that is one purpose. But it goes far, far beyond that, as explained in detail in this and the other columns linked. If all they wanted to do is prohibit right-to-work, they could easily have been that specific. (BTW, I edited this comment because I initially misread yours.)
The effort-and money-to defeat the Fair Tax Amendment came from Ken Griffin. He’s not here, smartly got out of town. No one has stepped up to take his place with money and an ad campaign. The propaganda around this amendment makes it doubtful that voters will see it for what it is. Beat Ken out of IL by six months, thankfully.
Ballotpedia says $7.6 million has been raised to support it, Zero in opposition.
Mark – Is the word “union” or “labor organization” defined anywhere? No where does this amendment reference what constitutes a labor organization in accordance with the law. It’s as vague and overreaching as “diminish or impaired” “Representatives of their own choosing” could be their uncle in a leisure suit. “Requiring membership in an organization as a condition of employment” could be construed as a member of the PTA. SECTION 25. WORKERS’ RIGHTSEmployees shall have the fundamental right to organize and to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing for the purpose of negotiating wages, hours, and working conditions, and… Read more »
Correct. Any two workers could invoke the right to bargain through any representative they choose. There’s no mention or reference of any kind to any existing law, so the two sentences that comprise the amendment would override all existing law.
Another (of manny) reason to move out of Illinois ASAP.
Has there been any polling yet on the amendment? I know we’re still a couple of months before the election so a lot can change but I’m curious where Illinois voters stand.
Not that I know of.
Ambrose Bierce, in the Devil’s Dictionary, nailed the reason that the public employee unions who run our state believe they can put this horrible amendment over the finish line in November:
VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
And Oscar Wilde tells us why “votes” work this way:
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
If it is not crystal clear the amendment only applies to the public sector, which it is not since that is not expressly stated in the proposed constitutional amendment, vote no. Even if there was explicit language limiting amendment the amendment only to the public sector, vote no. The public sector unions already have very strong union protections in Illinois, among the strongest in the country, via the IELRA / IELRB and IPLRA / IPLRB. The unions are already among, if not collectively the strongest, special interest group in Illinois. There was a constitutional pension amendment included in the rewritten… Read more »
Is there anything else the state can do to drive existing businesses out and ensure ones that were thinking about relocating to IL change their minds?
Yes the state can enact more soft on crime and DEI laws, plus create administrative rules where possible to further pursue soft on crime and DEI policies.
The state can choose not to repeal soft on crime provisions of the SAFE-T Act which take effect January 1, 2023.
The State can further their trans and drag queen agenda in education, and pass more education laws to increase the mind numbing and stifling education bureaucracy.
The Governor can continue to declare an ongoing State of Emergency.
Is there anything else that the federal government could be doing to destroy America?
Would the amendment, if passed, invalidate or reopen court decisions that are currently binding precedents?
It would reopen state law decisions regarding public workers because the constitution is supreme, and those reopened cases would turn on the interpretation of the two, impossibly vague sentences that comprise the amendment. For private sector workers where federal law mostly overrides state law, the federal decisions would stay in place, though there would still be substantial litigation defining the scope of federal preemption as it relates to the amendment.
So, every attempt to discipline or discharge a public employee, every arbitration clause, every award or denial of a duty disability pension, etc. would be up for grabs and every under-employed attorney would find new opportunities to re-litigate! Jury trials would be demanded. Beleaguered municipal attorneys or insurance company attorneys would be pushed to settle. Impromptu work stoppages could shut down trash collection. Dispute resolution mechanisms or long-established “presumptions” could be challenged. The vaguer the verbiage, the greater the gridlock. OMG!
My kid’s school a few years back sent my child home with a Scholastic educational flyer that celebrated the accomplishments of unions. Specifically the NYC teamsters garbage union’s fight for a living wage, showcasing the work stoppages and strikes as ‘progress’ for the working man. The flyer, of course, left out the part about the graft, crime, the fact that all of those union leaders during those strikes ended up in federal prison, and that garbage collectors now make $100k a year for relatively little work.
Extortion by gridlock, with just the right amount of violence and threatened violence to be convincing. Titrate things “just right” and unions win without going to jail. Same for the mafia. Keep the right lawyers and politicians “on retainer” and the risks are not all that large. AND the rewards for garbage collectors and teachers speak for themselves.
I hope it passes, but that’s because I want Illinois to fail. Every time Illinois does something idiotic, it causes more residents to leave and increases home values in other states, including mine.
“If you think teachers unions are powerful now, wait until this passes“
If it passes, teachers will be free of their current local union and be free to organize however they want: STEM Local 1, Black Teachers United, Science Teachers for Solidarity, Two Buddies Breaking The System, etc. It’ll be fun watching local school administrators and boards manage a dozen contracts all with different terms.
In practice, this amendment if passed will fix political power in public sector unions. Imagine what the CTU will do. Any agenda item – housing, cash payments to citizens, vastly increased taxes, reduction in police, all will be fair game as grounds for a strike. You can bet the CTU will do it. Part of me says pass this and we will see an exodus of productive taxpayers like never before. But the damage will be real and troubling and one hopes this will not pass.
CTU members can also break off from CTU and form their own union. Around 1/3 of its members voted for a different caucus to lead them. That’s a large enough group to break off and disrupt both the union and the entire district. The chaos will be fun.
This dumb amendment empowers individuals to organize however they see fit. I don’t think it even defines what a union is. Duuuuuuuuumb.
Right, nixit. It ends the exclusive bargaining power of established unions, which might be positive but, man, it sure will be chaotic. Whoever drafted this had rocks in their head.
I’m sure there will be some number of public sector employees who will feel energized to form a new group, but if one of our teacher friends is indicative of the sentiment toward their union, they’ll do as they’re told. Don’t think the IFT, IEA or the CTU will sit idle to watch their ranks shrink while startups poach members. I think these three are preparing quietly for a countermeasure to retain them. There is strength in numbers; the CTU has proven that over and over.