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 Did you vote for Stacy Davis Gates? How about
Roberta Lynch? Are you comfortable with them deciding how much you pay in taxes?
Unlikely, because you probably do not even know who they are. Gates is president
of the 20,000-member Chicago Teachers Union. Lynch is executive director of the
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, which
claims 90,000 active and retired members in Illinois.
Would you be happy about anyone you didn’t vote for deciding to tax you?
Of course not. Americans fought a war to stop England from taxing us without
representation. We built up a public education system so we’d have an informed
electorate capable of deciding who best represented our interests and would
balance the needs of our people against the harms of taking their hard-earned
cash.
But you didn’t elect Gates or Lynch, unless you are part of the minority of
Illinois government workers in their unions. Yet if you fall for their pitch
that the first question on your Nov. 8 ballot is about “workers’ rights,” and
don’t educate yourself on the tax implications of the proposed Amendment 1, you
will have essentially decided you are good with letting these government union
bosses decide your taxes.
An explanation is in order.
Amendment 1 is being sold as a benefit to all Illinois workers – the ads show
nurses and construction workers – but that just isn’t true. Federal law covers
union workers in the private sector, and state law cannot usurp federal powers.
When state lawmakers first voted to put this on the ballot, one of the sponsors
even said so.
So that means at least 93% of the working adults in Illinois won’t see any
benefit. But they will see the bill.
Amendment 1’s main threat is it greatly expands the topics over which government
unions can negotiate. It does so with vague terms such as “economic welfare” and
“safety at work.” We’ve gotten a glimpse of what those could mean from the
militant Chicago Teachers Union, which tried to negotiate “economic welfare” by
demanding housing subsidies when it went on strike for 11 days three years ago.
It’s also advocated defunding the police and banks.
It ultimately gave up the housing demand, but it was part of CTU’s strategy to
get 16% in raises and a contract that cost Chicago taxpayers $1.5 billion.
Broadening the topics of negotiations gives government unions an unfair
advantage, which will lead to higher costs. That means tax increases, including
higher local property taxes and more state taxes like those passed in 2019,
which gobbled an extra $5.24 billion.
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The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal and three other Illinois news
outlets independently evaluated Amendment 1 and came out against it. Besides
taxes, they worried future generations would be stuck with its rigid dictates.
They feared for a democracy in which state lawmakers cannot make state laws
about those who work for the state. They warned government union bosses would be
able to rewrite the rules because Illinois allows government union contracts to
trump state law.
What if the government union dislikes the state law calling for background
checks before a state worker can be around children? Just write into the
contract that background checks are not required. An Illinois Department of
Children and Family Services worker is currently charged with child pornography
– something a state employer should know if he’s convicted. Should a union
contract be able to suppress that information?
Don’t want taxpayers to know just how lucrative the new contract will be? Just
write into the contract that state open records laws do not apply. Prison
barbers making $115,000 and Chicago bus drivers making $174,000 would be secrets
– until your tax bill comes.
In all, at least 350 state laws could likely be voided by the language in
Amendment 1. Union bosses would gain power as the only special interest
protected by the Illinois Constitution. The politicians we elect to represent
our interests would be restricted and weakened by it. The proposal is so wide
and reckless that not a single state has embraced these policies, much less cast
them in stone in their state constitutions.
Plus, the other threat to taxpayers is Amendment 1 would further weaken
Illinois’ ability to fix its nation-leading public pension debt. Government
unions traded campaign cash for clout that gave them public pensions Illinoisans
cannot afford: over 25% of the state budget goes to pensions yet the taxpayer
debt to those pensions is now estimated at $313 billion. That’s $64,000 every
household in Illinois will eventually be asked to pay. Empower those government
unions more, and weaken state lawmakers’ abilities to rein them in, and you can
forget about reforming the pensions that have led Illinois to cut a range of
core services by 14% while pension spending has grown 533% since 2000.
More taxation, less representation: You never elected Gates or Lynch. You should
be afraid of other voters putting them in power for you.
Brad Weisenstein is the managing editor of the Illinois Policy
Institute, a non-partisan think tank pursuing a freer Illinois.
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