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 The governor’s actions come after an extensive legal review of
the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year in Harris v. Quinn. In
that case, the Supreme Court ruled that the Illinois Public Labor
Relations Act violated the First Amendment by forcing certain state
employees to involuntarily pay fees to a labor union.
In light of that decision, the Rauner administration has concluded
that the so-called “fair share” provisions of the current collective
bargaining agreements, that are similar to those invalidated by the
Supreme Court in Harris v. Quinn, are also unconstitutional.
“Forced union dues are a critical cog in the corrupt bargain that is
crushing taxpayers. Government union bargaining and government union
political activity are inexorably linked,” Governor Rauner said. “An
employee who is forced to pay unfair share dues is being forced to
fund political activity with which they disagree. That is a clear
violation of First Amendment rights – and something that, as
governor, I am duty-bound to correct.”
 The executive order allows state employees who wish not to support
government unions’ activities to stop paying the forced fees. It has
no impact on those employees who wish to remain paying members of
the union and fund union activities out of their paychecks.
Additional Background:
► The federal government
prohibited the forced collection of union dues in 1978 as part of
the Civil Service Reform Act signed by President Jimmy Carter. That
law passed the U.S. Senate 87-1 and the U.S. House of
Representatives 365-8. Illinois Senator Charles Percy was one of the
co-sponsors.
► 29 other states have laws that
prohibit government entities from forcing public workers join or
financially support labor organizations that they do not support.
► While Harris v. Quinn only
decided the constitutional issue as it relates to a subset of
Illinois state employees (home care workers), the Supreme Court’s
majority opinion found that much of the landmark case Abood v.
Detroit Board of Education was ”questionable on several grounds.”
► Notably, the Supreme Court
said in Harris v. Quinn:
- “Abood failed to appreciate the conceptual difficulty of
distinguishing in public-sector cases between union expenditures
that are made for collective-bargaining purposes and those that are
made to achieve political ends. In the private sector, the line is
easier to see. Collective bargaining concerns the union's dealings
with the employer; political advocacy and lobbying are directed at
the government. But in the public sector, both collective-bargaining
and political advocacy and lobbying are directed at the government.”
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- “Abood failed to appreciate the difference between the core
union speech involuntarily subsidized by dissenting
public-sector employees and the core union speech involuntarily
funded by their counterparts in the private sector. In the
public sector, core issues such as wages, pensions, and benefits
are important political issues, but that is generally not so in
the private sector. In the years since Abood, as state and local
expenditures on employee wages and benefits have mushroomed, the
importance of the difference between bargaining in the public
and private sectors has been driven home.”
- “Recent experience has borne out this
concern. See DiSalvo, The Trouble with Public Sector
Unions, National Affairs No. 5, p. 15 (2010) ( ‘In
Illinois, for example, public-sector unions have helped
create a situation in which the state's pension funds
report a liability of more than $100 billion, at least
50% of it unfunded’).”
- “A union's status as exclusive bargaining agent and
the right to collect an agency fee from non-members are
not inextricably linked. For example, employees in some
federal agencies may choose a union to serve as the
exclusive bargaining agent for the unit, but no employee
is required to join the union or to pay any union fee.
Under federal law, in agencies in which unionization is
permitted, 'each employee shall have the right to form,
join, or assist any labor organization, or to refrain
from any such activity, freely and without fear of
penalty or reprisal, and each employee shall be
protected in the exercise of such right.’”
Copy of Executive Order
[Lance Trover, Officer of the
Governor Bruce Rauner]
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