Opinion: Unions are planning a nationwide takeover — it’s already begun in Illinois

In 2022, Illinois voters approved what they likely thought was an innocuous ballot measure, the Illinois Workers’ Rights Amendment, also called Amendment One . Little did Illinoisians know, this constitutional amendment was being tested as a blueprint for unscrupulous union executives to consolidate power nationwide.

Passed with 59 percent support, Amendment One codified “the fundamental right to organize and to bargain collectively” in the Illinois Constitution. Moreover, the amendment explicitly prohibits any new law 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 work place safety.”

If you think this language seems broad and easily abused, you’re right: The ambiguity is a feature, not a bug. By codifying an expansive “fundamental right” to collective bargaining, Amendment One gives unions carte blanche to expand and solidify their power and influence.

Amendment One “constitutionalizes” virtually every union activity and allows collective bargaining agreements to override anything passed by the state legislature. Amendment One thus undermines democracy, shielding the right to collective bargaining from lawmakers and the voters who elected them. As a result, unions are, in the euphemistic language of Harvard’s Center for Labor and a Just Economy, “less vulnerable to the political whims of changing legislatures.”

So without legal guardrails, unaccountable union bosses are now more powerful than elected Illinois lawmakers. And Amendment One also threatens worker protections that keep unions in check, such as the right to refrain from union activities.

Though lauded as a victory for all workers, Amendment One offers few genuine benefits, especially to workers in the private sector. The National Labor Relations Act covers most private-sector unions already, and supersedes any conflicting state-level laws or constitutional amendments. So Amendment One is mostly redundant for trade unions.

For government unions, however, Amendment One is a gloves-are-off boost. This measure affords them immeasurable power beyond traditional union activities, such as negotiating for increased wages and benefits for their members, to include the right to demand virtually anything in negotiations. And it preserves their right to strike and shut down government services to meet union demands.

Illinois government unions have seized the opportunity to demand more than pay increases. The Chicago Teachers Union, described as one of “ the most powerful and progressive teachers unions in the country, ” has already made, to paraphrase its president, Stacy Davis Gates, audacious demands . In negotiating a new contract, the union has demanded $50 billion in provisions that have nothing to do with education, the workplace or their members’ compensation — everything from carbon neutrality, installation of solar panels on schools, funding abortion, and building 10,000 affordable housing units.

Unfortunately, this absurdity isn’t limited to Illinois; union bosses have exported this amendment’s broad language to other states as well.

In 2023, union-friendly Pennsylvania lawmakers introduced a bill proposing to add a right to collective bargaining to their state constitution. A nod to Amendment One, the Pennsylvania initiative was a word-for-word carbon copy of Illinois’s far-reaching measure. Though the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, narrowly controlled by Democrats, passed HB 950, the bill never gained traction in the state Senate.

Similar legislation has appeared in California , Iowa , Minnesota and Vermont . Thus far, these copycat amendments have not become law, but more of them will surely surface nationwide because of Amendment One’s relative success.

Meanwhile, one lawsuit may reveal the amendment’s limits. Legislative staffers for Democratic Illinois Speaker of the House Chris Welch, who supported Amendment One, filed suit against him in June, claiming the lawmaker refuses to honor Amendment One by not collectively bargaining with them.

Welch has argued that state law prohibits legislative staff from unionizing and prevents collective bargaining for staffers. Welch claims that lawmakers must amend the law before his staff has union rights. This suit could be the first test of how broadly Illinois courts interpret the amendment’s creation of a “fundamental right” to unionize.

Voters and lawmakers nationwide must remain vigilant to contain the pernicious legal language of Amendment One from spreading and infecting their own state constitutions. If not, this harmful amendment opens a door for union dominance that we cannot easily close.

David R. Osborne is senior fellow of labor policy with the Commonwealth Foundation, Pennsylvania’s free-market think tank. Mailee Smith is senior director of labor policy and staff attorney at Illinois Policy Institute, Illinois’ free-market think tank.

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