Taxpayer advocates are urging residents to vote “no” on a statewide constitutional amendment referendum on the Nov. 8 ballot.
If Illinois voters approve the proposed Workers Rights Amendment, taxpayers would likely have to dig deeper into their pockets to cover rising costs of salaries and benefits for public sector employees, said Austin Berg of the Illinois Policy Institute.
“I think the Workers Rights Amendment is a very deceiving name because it really only applies to government workers,” Berg said. “It should be called the Government Workers Rights Amendment, that would be more accurate.”
Berg participated in an online forum Wednesday night organized by Anthony Travis, better known as “The Tax Doctor.” I met Travis in 2019 at a legislative field hearing in Matteson conducted by the Property Tax Relief Task Force.
Berg, Travis and others want to help homeowners in the south and southwest suburbs who are hammered by oppressively high tax bills. Berg talked about a woman facing foreclosure of her Matteson home because she cannot afford the annual $10,000 tax bill.
“I live in Park Forest and I have a $14,000 tax bill on a $98,000 home,” taxpayer Phalese Binion said during Wednesday’s forum.
Park Forest has the highest tax rate in Cook County. To add insult to injury, the community lost its high school when Rich Township High School District 227 closed Rich East in 2020.
Binion said lawmakers have cited her situation during deliberations about property tax relief.
“My tax bill made it to Springfield, it was so outrageous,” she said. “Everybody wants to blame somebody else.”
Labor unions representing government workers are deceiving the public with television commercials about the amendment, Travis and Berg said. A commercial shows a pediatric nurse caring for a young patient cuddling a Teddy bear.
“These kids are fighters,” the nurse character says. “We see these kids as family, but hospitals see them as dollar signs. They cut corners. Fewer nurses, longer shifts.”
The commercial implied that voting for the amendment would save lives.
“It’s not safe for these kids,” the nurse character says. “When we speak up we risk being fired.”
The ad is misleading because the revised amendment would not apply to nurses and other nongovernment worker, Berg said.
“If you see those commercials on TV they’re trying to make it seem like this is giving new rights to workers in the private sector,” Berg said. “That is not the case. Federal law governs collective bargaining in the private sector.”
The referendum’s goal is to guarantee government workers continue to receive overly generous compensation packages regardless of taxpayers’ ability to pay, he said.
“The reason Illinois property tax bills are so high is the deck is so stacked in favor of government worker unions,” Berg said. “What this amendment does is put all those extreme powers into the Illinois Constitution.”
Lawmakers approved wording of the proposed amendment in 2021 when the Democratic majority decided to put the question to voters.
“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,” according to the amendment.
“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 workplace 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.”
Travis and Berg said elected and appointed local officials often agree to generous compensation demands from unions representing government workers. Representatives of schools, municipalities and other taxing bodies are like gamblers playing with someone else’s money. No one in the bargaining process advocates for taxpayers.
“There are no limits to what any union can bargain for and no limit to what any elected official can give them,” Berg said. “With those two ingredients, taxes and debt are going to go up. It is inevitable.”
Berg said supporters want to frame the amendment as a ban on “right-to-work” measures.
“Right to work is essentially a policy in a majority of states that says if a person doesn’t want to pay money to a union they can’t be fired,” Berg said.
In order to adopt the change to the Illinois Constitution, 60% of people voting on the question or a simple majority of all votes cost in the election would have to be in support of the amendment. Many voters may skip the question, which will appear at the top of ballots.
Ted Slowik is a columnist with the Daily Southtown.
