Early voting officially began in most Illinois counties on Thursday, and those casting ballots were faced with the question of whether to amend the state’s constitution to include the right to unionize.
The Workers’ Rights Amendment would require a 60% approval rate to be added to the state’s constitution, and would state that “no law shall be passed that interferes with, negates or diminishes the right of employees to organize and to bargain collectively,” according to the text of the amendment.
Joe Bowen, part of the “Vote Yes for Worker Rights” group that’s helping spearhead the push in favor of the amendment, says that enshrining worker protections in the state constitution is critical due to attacks on those rights at both the state and national level.
“There’s never been a more important time for us to guarantee these projections in the Illinois constitution, because when you look at what’s happening nationally, our rights are under attack,” he said.
WirePoint’s Ted Dabrowski is part of a movement opposing the amendment, saying that it could potentially increase tax burdens on Illinoisans.
“The more powers you give the government unions to negotiate over taxpayers, the more it’s going to cost,” he said.
Specifically, Dabrowski pointed to research by the right-leaning Illinois Policy Institute that suggested that the amendment could ultimately lead to higher property taxes.
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“It’s hard to imagine how property taxes will ever come down. You can only see them ratcheting up,” he said.
Bowen argues that the measure would add additional protections for employees in both the private and public sectors, and would ultimately result in better working conditions and better wages.
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“Workers’ rights will put more money in the pockets of working Illinoisans, which will help those families and the communities where they live in,” he said.
Bowen says that the push by former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner to curtail the power of public unions serves as a reminder of why it’s critical to further bolster worker protections.
“It will also protect them from anti-worker politicians who would take those rights away in the future, and we’ve seen those anti-worker attacks in Illinois and at the national level,” he said.
It is precisely that inability to tweak workers’ rights laws that groups like IPI and WirePoints have cited as evidence that it could lead to large salary increases for leadership in state unions, which they say would cause higher taxes and more headaches for taxpayers.
“Illinois won’t be able to become a ‘right-to-work’ state, as most of our neighboring states are, if it passes,” Dabrowski said.
