Letter: Answering questions on worker's issue

There are many questions about the proposed constitutional Amendment 1 on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Who is affected? If passed it will not affect most workers in the state that work for private companies and will only impact public employees, since the National Labor Relations Act preempts and prevents any state or local government from passing a law that would affect the labor agreements in private companies, except for the unlikely repeal of the NLRA.

What is impact on public employees? The amendment says if the legislature wanted to pass a law to try to restrict bargaining rights in the future, as done in Wisconsin, they would not be able to take away such rights from public employees and deprive them of a right all employees have at private companies.

Another portion of the amendment prevents right-to-work laws that would allow workers to refuse to join a union who bargained for better wages and conditions for all employees. For those that might think an employee should have a right to refuse to join a union, consider the unfairness of having an employee get those fought-for benefits without sharing in the burden of supporting the union that fought to get those benefits.

As for potential tax increases, no one can predict whether there will be increase in costs to governments from the bargaining rights, since public unions with or without the amendment will always push for higher wages and benefits and government's obligation is only to bargain in good faith, and can always say yes or no to the requests.

It is significant that votes in favor of putting this amendment on the ballot were significantly bipartisan in both the Illinois House and Senate, and I urge support for the Amendment as an insurance policy on rights, which should trump any other concerns about the proposed amendment.

Elliott Hartstein

Northbrook