|
 CTU has gone on strike three times in three school years. In
the latest work stoppage, over 330,000 schoolchildren missed five days of
school. Parents were notified of the walkout after 11 p.m. on a school night,
leaving them just hours to develop a back-up plan after the union decided not to
show up.
This shut-down follows the 2020-2021 school year, when Chicago Public Schools
was fully remote for most of the year, rolling out hybrid options starting in
February 2021. All told, Chicago students had gone 17 months without fully
in-person education by the time they started the current school year Aug. 30,
2021.
And students’ academic achievement suffered for it. One
example: On the SATs, there was a 6.1 percentage point decrease in the number of
Chicago students at least meeting standards in math – and a drop of 6.7
percentage points for the same category for low-income students – in 2021
compared to 2019.
But CTU’s political muscle – and their willingness to flex it – could become the
blueprint for schools and government at all levels if Illinois’ powerful
government-sector unions get what they’re asking for at the polls in November.
They want an amendment to the Illinois Constitution that would give unelected
government union bosses more power than state law or the people elected to
represent residents’ best interests.
Illinois has long been a bastion of union power, and Amendment 1 could be part
of a blueprint to solidify that control.
Unions often run legislation in a test state before trying in other states or
even at the federal level. For example, California’s AB 5, which effectively
redefined independent contractors as employees to force them into unionization,
was mimicked by provisions in a version of the federal Protecting the Right to
Organize Act, or PRO Act. Washington state provisions used to bolster union
representation of home-care providers funded through Medicaid were included in a
version of the Build Back Better Act.
So here’s what’s at stake.
Amendment 1 is billed as a right-to-work ban in a state that already doesn’t
allow right to work, but it’s much more than that. It would give unions a
“fundamental” right to organize and bargain over wages, hours, working
conditions, economic welfare and safety at work – i.e., virtually anything – and
explicitly prohibit lawmakers from ever interfering with or diminishing those
rights. Unions would be able to demand anything during
negotiations and go on strike to get their demands met. Resulting contracts
would carry the weight of the state constitution. Lawmakers wouldn’t be able to
restrict what unions can negotiate or limit when they can go on strike without
running afoul of the state constitution.
What’s more, lawmakers would never be able to repeal a little-known Illinois
provision that allows many union contracts to override conflicting state and
local laws and regulations.
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Known in legal parlance as a “supercedence clause,”
the practical effect is that a union will be able to rewrite laws it
doesn’t like just by negotiating a contrary provision in its
contract. If the employer doesn’t agree? The union goes on strike.
And government officials’ hands will be tied. That
includes laws in place to protect children.
A provision requiring “background information” on employees of the
Illinois Department of Children and Family Services – the department
charged with protecting children who are reported abused or
neglected – could be contradicted in the union’s contract with the
state.
So could the provision prohibiting employment of “sexually
dangerous” persons.
On the education side, a union could decide the state’s licensure
qualifications are just too strenuous and do away with a licensure
requirement altogether in a school district contract.
In fact, unions could undermine at least 11 provisions in Illinois’
Children and Family Services Act and another 38 in its School Code –
just two acts among thousands in Illinois statutes – with the
backing of the state constitution. This isn’t the
first time unions have tried to pass such a state constitutional
amendment in a union-friendly state: A similar "Protect Our Jobs"
initiative was considered in Michigan in 2012. That amendment would
have adversely affected at least 80 Michigan laws and jeopardized
the state’s fiscal stability, according to a memo state Attorney
General Bill Schuette sent to Gov. Rick Snyder at the time.
But the unions overplayed their hand. Not only was the amendment
resoundingly defeated 57% to 42%, but the Michigan Legislature
subsequently enacted right-to-work provisions that went into effect
the following March.
To date, no other state constitutions include provisions such as
those in Amendment 1.
But that doesn’t mean unions in other states won’t try. The Michigan
experience dampened union efforts for a decade. If the amendment
passes in Illinois, government labor leaders won’t wait that long to
try again in other states.
 CTU’s harmful antics are just a precursor of what could happen if
government unions get what they want. The lesson: If Amendment 1 is
enacted in Illinois, unions won’t sit still. The ability of an
unelected third party to rewrite the laws of one state will create
an insatiable desire to do so in other states.
And that’s a threat to the tenets of democracy everywhere.
Mailee Smith is director of labor policy and staff
attorney for the Illinois Policy Institute. |
