Amendment 1

Among the many offices and other matters on which Illinoisans will be voting next Tuesday is something called “Amendment 1”. Here’s how the referendum appears on the ballot:

PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO THE 1970 ILLINOIS CONSTITUTION
EXPLANATION OF AMENDMENT

The proposed amendment would add a new section to the Bill of Rights Article of the Illinois Constitution that would guarantee workers the fundamental right to organize and to bargain collectively and to negotiate wages, hours, and working conditions, and to promote their economic welfare and safety at work. The new amendment would also prohibit from being passed any new law that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively over their wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment and workplace safety. At the general election to be held on November 8, 2022, you will be called upon to decide whether the proposed amendment should become part of the Illinois Constitution. For the proposed addition of Section 25 to Article I of the Illinois Constitution.[

Amendment 1 would add the following language to Article I of the Illinois Constitution:

(a) Employees 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 to protect their economic welfare and safety at work. No law shall be passed that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively over their wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment and work place safety, including any law or ordinance that prohibits the execution or application of agreements between employers and labor organizations that represent employees requiring membership in an organization as a condition of employment.

(b) The provisions of this Section are controlling over those of Section 6 of Article VII.

Several lawsuits have been brought concerning this amendment. In one of them the appellate court found that the amendment would only pertain to public sector workers, the supremacy clause ensuring that the provisions of the NLRB would continue to hold for private sector workers.

If I had to pick the ten most important issues facing Illinoisans today, this would not be among them. I have been unable to find any newspaper, print or online that has come out in support of the amendment. the Chicago Tribune, Crain’s Chicago Business, The Daily Herald, and the Wall Street Journal have all published editorials against it. As I see it among the things this amendment would do would be to render all “no strike clauses” in public employee contracts null and avoid which seems to me to be the opposite of what needs to be done. Is it really true that public employees in Illinois do not have enough power?

The editors of the Wall Street Journal certainly don’t seem to think so:

Illinois debt teetered close to junk bond status until nearly $200 billion in Covid bailouts provided enough cash for a reprieve to its fiscal mess. A peek at the startling state payroll reveals why the mess will return.

According to Open The Books, which focuses on government transparency, the state has 132,188 public employees with salaries and benefits over $100,000. That’s a total cost of $17 billion. The list includes 10 police department leaders and 18 school superintendents with salaries above $300,000 and some 16,592 retirees with six-figure pensions. Five of the top 10 public school employee payouts are for pensions above $330,000 a year.

That’s in a state school system that fails its most vulnerable children. See the National Assessment of Educational Progress, if you dare. In 2020 the average Chicago teacher’s compensation was $108,730 including salary and benefits. Chicago teachers are among the highest paid in the nation, which might be fine if they were also among the highest performing measured by student achievement. But pay for performance is unknown in Springfield.

Giant pensions in some cases outstrip salaries, as politicians know they can increase pension benefits that will be paid long after they leave office. Open The Books says there are “more state police officers retired on six-figure pensions (1,555) than officers currently paid on six-figure salaries (1,540).”

Many states offer high salaries to public employees, but Illinois state workers are the second highest-paid government workers in the country when adjusted for cost of living, according to Wirepoints. The Land of Lincoln beats California, New Jersey and New York on the metric. This is one reason Illinois voters pay the second highest property tax rates. New Jersey is number one.

In my view there are presently several major problems with the relationship between the state and public employees. First, public employee unions’ contributing to political campaigns is inherently corrupt. That’s the very nature of being able to recycle tax dollars into political contributions. Second, many of those who benefited from the high pensions offered to public employees aren’t paying for them. They’ve left the state, leaving the state with a larger tax burden than might otherwise be the case. That is unjust. And we aren’t receiving value for what we’re paying. Also, not only are Chicagoans paying the pensions of retired Chicago schoolteachers, they’re paying the pensions of all Illinois schoolteachers. I believe that Chicago is the only jurisdiction so burdened. Jurisdictions should pay their own pensions rather than depending on other jurisdictions to do it for them.

I will vote “No” on Amendment 1 and I encourage all Illinoisans to do the same.

Ballotpedia has considerably more detail on Amendment 1.