It has been said that he who pays the piper dictates the tune. As taxpayers, we pay elected officials to solve problems and work for us. Unfortunately, labor unions have a stranglehold on a majority of elected officials.
At every level of local government in Illinois, Democrats are overwhelmingly in charge. Yet nearly every weekend in Chicago, residents are terrorized by violence.
Our citizens are afraid to ride public transit. Too many neighborhoods lack full-service grocery stores and affordable housing. The schools are graduating students who cannot read or write, according to state data. Plus, the Illinois pension crisis that has grown to more than $140 billion. The electorate sees no hope in voting.
Why haven’t elected officials been able to solve the basic problems of crime, education, homelessness and pensions?
While elected officials are supposed to work for us, it is clear they listen to the most influential special interest group in Illinois — labor unions. Last year, the unions represented 13.1% of Illinois workers, and they are controlling government not for the public good but for their own good.
The influence of unions on elected officials has been used to drive policy and kill legislation that could have benefited communities. The passage of the Workers’ Rights Amendment to the Illinois Constitution was led by unions. The amendment guarantees workers a broad right to collective bargaining and prohibits right-to-work legislation — effectively making unions more powerful than any elected official.
Last year, the Illinois AFL-CIO, Illinois Nurses Association and the Chicago Federation of Labor expressed opposition to a bipartisan bill, S.B. 2068, that would have expanded the number of nurses in Illinois by allowing Illinois to join the national compact that recognizes licenses for all nurses working in states that belong to the compact. Supporters of the bill greatly outnumbered union interests, but in the end, the bill died.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker and leaders of both chambers in the Illinois state legislature sent their kids to private schools, but they just allowed the Invest in Kids Act, a scholarship program that benefited 9,000 low-income kids, to end. The program was funded by private scholarships and allowed kids to escape failing public schools. This program has funded more than 40,000 scholarships for working-class families. According to the latest data, the scholarship students are mostly African American and Latino.
Why would legislators, the Black and Latino caucuses, and the governor not continue this program? The Chicago Teachers Union opposed the program.
The CTU has been taking positions against legislation that could harm children and parents. For example, CTU opposed measures that would:
* Let school districts suspend or expel students convicted of violent felonies.
* Require school districts with 300 or more students to post a list of learning materials.
* Require a school district to notify parents that a school employee has been charged with a sex offense.
* Allow schools to provide comprehensive reading and math intervention for kindergarten through third grade students.
* Raise the minimum funding for charter schools.
A recent report by the advocacy group the Illinois Policy Institute details the influence CTU has exerted over lawmakers. The report notes that CTU told lawmakers what to do more than 1,360 times from 2011 to 2022.
The unions’ influence on electoral politics is seen through the millions of dollars in union dues contributed to candidates and incumbents for public office. The IPI did a study of contributions received by members of the General Assembly during 2019-20. The analysis revealed more than $15.7 million flowed directly from unions and union political action committees to the campaigns of state lawmaker. A majority of sitting lawmakers, nearly 88%, received money from unions.
Our democracy is at risk when elected representatives are more concerned with pleasing their union masters rather than their constituents. Consider the words of U.S. Sen. Daniel Webster, who declared in a 1830 speech to the Senate that “it is … the people’s Constitution, the people’s government, made for the people, made by the people and answerable to the people.” Our elected officials are bound by the Constitution to put citizens ahead of special interests including unions.
I recommend these solutions to enhance our democracy:
1. Mayor Brandon Johnson should issue an executive order prohibiting donations from contractors with the city including labor unions.
2. Pritzker should issue an executive order prohibiting donations from contractors with the state including labor unions.
3. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle should issue an executive order prohibiting donations from contractors with the county including labor unions.
4. Pritzker should advocate for legislation to close loopholes in campaign finance laws.
5. Pritzker and the legislature should reinstate the Invest in Kids scholarship program.
6. Pritzker and the legislature should fully empower and fund the Illinois State Board of Elections to strictly enforce campaign finance laws.
These common sense solutions will free elected officials who are afraid to alienate their union-funded backers. Our democracy is too important to allow a handful of union bosses to dictate decision-making at every level of government. The U.S. Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo stated that limits on campaign contributions are justified if they are closely tied to an important governmental interest, such as preventing quid pro quo corruption or the appearance thereof.
I write this to make those who are comfortable enjoying the benefit of taxpayer funding without accountability uncomfortable.
Willie Wilson is a Chicago business owner and a former 2023 mayoral candidate.
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