Amendment 1 to the Illinois Constitution, approved by referendum in November, was promoted as guaranteeing basic fairness for all workers. But it does something else — by prohibiting any new laws that might impinge on worker collective bargaining, Amendment 1 disempowers future elected officials from changing how government operates. Illinois voters will elect governors, mayors and legislators who have been disempowered from fulfilling their main constitutional responsibility: to make decisions on how to best operate government for the public good.
Union officials argue that Amendment 1 merely enshrines the right to collective bargaining. But collective bargaining by government employees has already disempowered Illinois officials from fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities.
Governors and mayors come into office with their hands tied by collective bargaining agreements that mandate grotesque inefficiencies. Trash collection in Chicago costs two to three times more what it would without convoluted work rules, according to a Wall Street Journal report in 2011.
