In Illinois workers rights will be on the ballot.

If passed, constitutional amendment will uphold the right to organize.

An Illinois Circuit Court judge rejected the right-wing Liberty Justice Center attempt to prevent voters from having their say on a constitutional amendment to protect workers’ rights in November.

The Liberty Justice Center, which filed to prevent a vote, is a front for the Illinois Policy Institute.

The ballot measure, which requires 60% of the vote to pass, seeks to place the right to collective bargaining in the Illinois constitution. If successful, it would prevent future state general assemblies from passing anti-union “right-to-work” legislation.

The Illinois General Assembly passed the proposed amendment in 2021. If approved in November, it would establish a constitutional right for employees in Illinois to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their choice to negotiate “wages, hours, and working conditions and to protect their economic welfare and safety at work.”

When Bruce Rauner was governor he encouraged local municipalities to pass their own local right to work laws.

Although Rauner was less than successful in this effort, Amendment 1 would constitutionally prevent that from ever happening.

Amendment 1 would explicitly bar state and local governments from adopting so-called “right-to-work” laws or ordinances.

Currently twenty-seven states have right to work, “free rider,” laws where non-union employees benefit from union contracts but pay no dues.

“The proposed Amendment would serve at least three permissible purposes,” Judge Grischow wrote in his ruling against theLiberty Justice Center and IPI.

“First, it would create rights for public employees, which Petitioners concede is not preempted by the NLRA. Second, it would restrain the power of the General Assembly to pass laws restricting union security agreements, a subject left open to the states. Third, it would act as a state-law failsafe to preserve rights for private-sector employees in the event the federal government ever decided to abandon the NLRA.”

“There are no grounds for denying the voters the opportunity to decide whether to add the Workers’ Rights Amendment to the Illinois constitution,” Grischow concluded.

Note that the Illinois Association of School Boards opposes Amendment 1.

That should be enough of a reason to vote yes.