(The Center Square) – While at a Democratic National Convention news conference, top Illinois Democrats weighed in on the pending lawsuit that names House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch as a defendant.
The Illinois Legislative Staff Association and Brady Burden say in a lawsuit that Welch, D-Hillside, is not allowing the staff to collectively bargain with their employer over wages, hours and working conditions, despite there being a new provision in the Illinois Constitution that protects workers’ rights.
“Let’s take a look at the federal level, in the Senate, Sen. Edward Markey, his staff actually unionized and he collectively bargained with them without an administrative framework. He was basically in the same situation as Speaker Welch is. He did it voluntarily because you can just do that. The ability to unionize is essentially the freedom of assembly and the freedom to enter into legal contracts,” Burden told The Center Square.
Markey’s office formed the U.S. Senate’s first labor union.
Welch was asked about the pending lawsuit Illinois statehouse staffers have against him during a news conference last week in Chicago.
“We have a law in place currently that I have fought to change. I passed a bill out of the House overwhelmingly, I stand by that bill. I’m hoping the Senate moves that bill and the governor signs it. There is a way to change the law and I believe the courts will recognize that the way the plaintiffs have decided to go with that [the lawsuit] is the incorrect way,” said Welch. “I would encourage them to go with the bill I filed. If we have to change it and make it better, then we should do that.”
Burden said House Bill 4148 was poorly written and was written in bad faith, and that it was never going to get through the Senate.
Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, hopes that House Democrats will get together and improve HB 4148. Burden, a legislative staffer, said the bill has several “fatal flaws,” like not allowing the union to strike on session days. Harmon was asked about the pending lawsuit.
“I think the bill is a non-starter and I think the staff would agree with that and did so in their pleadings. I hope the House will get together internally and come up with a solution,” said Harmon. “I think everyone understands, including the staff, that there are fatal flaws in the bill and I hope that the house leadership and the staff will get together and work out their own problems.”
Separately, Welch said there’s existing law prohibiting him from sitting down with the staff.
The law Welch is referring to is what Burden said is the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act, which provides protections for unions and management. The IPLRA is an administrative framework, according to Burden.
“It exists to ensure some form of labor peace, but unions existed before the ILPRA and the National Labor Relations Board and they’ll continue to exist afterwards,” said Burden. “There was and continues to be nothing stopping the speaker from sitting down, of his own free will, sitting down and bargaining with us collectively.”
Senate Republicans say if the staff succeeds in unionizing, Democrats will be put at a disadvantage because the super majority tends to put forward legislation last minute. So future union contracts might restrict staff’s ability to analyze the state’s budget at 2 a.m., which Republicans say Democrats do to avoid public scrutiny.
