The U.S. Supreme Court announced Thursday it will consider Illinois’ “fair-share” case, Janus v. AFSCME. The suit, brought by state employee Mark Janus, is likely to trigger an overturn of a 40-year-old labor ruling, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, and kneecap public sector unions–the most heavily-organized sector of the American workforce.

While the court may not rule on the case until spring, labor organizers in Illinois are already preparing for the worst. A similar case before the court, Friedrichs vs. the California Teachers Association, resulted in a 4-4 stalemate after the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, but not before provoking the ire of the court’s only swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy. The new court includes Justice Neil Gorsuch, whose seat on the bench is even further right than Scalia’s was, and whose long background in corporate defense is punctuated by controversial cases.

The votes will ultimately decide whether union shops can continue to collect “fair-share” or agency fees from non-union members. Distinct from any union dues or political contributions, agency fees are the pro rata price every non-union worker pays to help defray the cost of the union-provided services they use and benefit from. Since unions have a legal obligation to fairly represent members and non-members alike, the union has to pay the cost to provide the service regardless. An elimination of agency fees creates a problem of “free riders” who don’t pay their fair share, which may happen nationally if Abood is overturned.

Non-union workers like Mark Janus benefit from these union-provided services when they step into jobs where unions have secured a suite of competitive insurance benefits, pension contracts, and higher than average wages for the workforce. In Janus’ case, that means making $71,000 a year as a child advocate at the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, despite the median national salary for such a position being approximately $46,000.

Janus, however, does not believe he has benefitted from these services. On Thursday he wrote, “When I was hired by the state of Illinois, no one asked if I wanted a union to represent me. I only found out the union was involved when money for the union started coming out of my paychecks. I don't want to be associated with a union that claims to represent my interests and me when it really doesn't.”

Janus’ case started life as Governor Bruce Rauner’s case. Rauner sued AFSCME in an attempt to enforce Executive Order 2015-13, which would have cut the union’s ability to collect agency fees. On March 1 of this year the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals cited Abood when it kicked Rauner out of the case for having no standing, paving the way for the Janus to take the role of plaintiff and for a U.S. Supreme Court appeal. Rauner is still stuck in a court battle with AFSCME on a separate case, by which he seeks to freeze all state worker pay for four years and start outsourcing government jobs.


[7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling]

Facing the Supreme Court’s 5-4 balance and four prior decisions indicating the court’s sentiment against fair-share fees, many union leaders now believe it is no longer a matter of whether Abood will be overruled, but when.

In his oral arguments at the appellate court, AFSCME President Lee Saunders said, “It is clear that the corporate CEOs and wealthy special interests behind this case will stop at nothing to make it harder for public service workers to speak up together for better public services, stronger communities, and wages and protections that benefit all Americans."

Janus’ attorneys filed a Supreme Court petition in June under the patronage of the Koch-funded Right to Work Foundation and Liberty Justice Center. The latter is the legal arm of the Illinois Policy Institute, which provided the Rauner administration a pool of workers shortly after the lower court’s decision.

While the administration is no longer party to the litigation, Rauner commented Thursday on
Janus’ advancement. In a release he said: “No person should be forced to give up a portion of their pay each month to fund public sector union activity against their will...It’s a fundamental violation of their First Amendment right to free speech and association. I am hopeful the Court will see it that way in the end.”

Jacob Huebert, director of litigation at the Liberty Justice Center, followed suit shortly after, releasing a statement echoing Rauner’s First Amendment rhetoric.  

“Right now, public sector employees in Illinois and many other states aren’t given a choice: They’re automatically forced to give their money to a union. Every public sector employee in the U.S. should be free to choose whether to pay money to the union at his or her workplace,” he wrote. “Janus v. AFSCME presents an opportunity to restore fairness and First Amendment rights to millions of American workers by giving them the right to choose whether to support a union with their money.”

In his Thursday statement President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Mark Mix, further attempted to intertwine free speech arguments with the plaintiff’s cause, adding “As the court noted in the National Right to Work Foundation’s landmark Knox v. SEIU victory, compelled speech under the guise of forced union dues is an ‘anomaly’ under the First Amendment. We are hopeful that by the end of this Supreme Court term, the high court will finally end this anomaly and fully protect the First Amendment rights of public sector workers against an injustice that has existed for over half a century.”

The word choice is no coincidence. The Koch-funded State Policy Network--of which the Illinois Policy Institute is a funded member--was exposed by the Guardian last month for coordinating with the case’s patrons to intentionally bust public sector unions. Part of their strategy includes conflating agency fees with forced union dues in public discourse. The tactic has been fairly successful.

The second part of the strategy boils down to a novel First Amendment argument: Because Citizens United established a precedent that money is speech, and because the First Amendment forbids the government to compel speech, the government cannot compel its employees to pay their share of the bills for union-provided services. In Janus’ instance, roughly $500 a year.

The crux of the argument is not that union agency fees are being used to fund political candidates or causes--a practice that Abood did much to end and which a separate 1988 ruling ultimately killed--but that any worker wages paid with government money should be inherently classified as political speech.

The Current Landscape

Why are public workers such a target for Koch-funded organizations, and what puts Illinois in the center of that target?

While national private sector unionization has dropped to about 6%, public sector workers are still unionized at a rate of 34%. In Illinois, those number are even higher: Half of all public sector workers are unionized and that number has grown 5.5% over the last decade. Even as the combined public-private national unionization rates have fallen, Illinois maintained a 15.6% unionization rate, 4% higher than the national 11.6%. Local government workers go even further, with nearly 6-in-10 Illinois local government workers in unions. Likewise, 28.3% of federal workers in Illinois are unionized.

Worth noting also are the demographics of Illinois unions. Military veterans make up the largest portion. African American workers are statistically the most likely racial or ethnic group to be union members, both nationally and in Illinois.

When it comes to political donations, only 2% of all membership dues and fees collected by labor organizations in Illinois are spent on political activities and lobbying, or about $6.62 annually per member. Meanwhile, labor unions in Illinois spend 77 percent of dues and fees on bargaining and representation for workers. AFSCME Council 31 goes even further: about 87% of their funds are spent on representing workers. AFSCME’s political donations, which come from a separate political PAC, work out to about $25 per member annually. And those $25 don’t come from non-union workers like Janus.  

After the University of Illinois and the Illinois Economic Policy Institute analyzed of 744,439 Form LM-2 reports, required for all labor unions that represent private sector employees, filed in FY2014 they found the average union member contributes $663 in annual dues, fees, and other membership payments in Illinois to labor union locals– about $55 per month.

Against the backdrop of this economic output, AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Roberta Lynch says anti-union organizations are out to tilt the field. In a Thursday release she said, “The forces behind this case know that by joining together in strong unions, working people have the voice they need to level the economic and political playing field.”

The same message came from AFSCME President Lee Saunders who seemed optimistic about Janus’ outcome, and called the case, “yet another example of corporate interests using their power and influence to launch a political attack on working people and rig the rules of the economy in their own favor.”

“When working people are able to join strong unions, they have the strength in numbers they need to fight for the freedoms they deserve, like access to quality health care, retirement security and time off work to care for a loved one. The merits of the case, and 40 years of Supreme Court precedent and sound law, are on our side. We look forward to the Supreme Court honoring its earlier rulings,” said Saunders.

The Look Ahead

If Saunders is wrong and agency fees are removed from their revenues, public unions may soon find themselves without the dollars necessary to fulfill their legal duty to fair representation, and unable to afford costly litigation to secure better working conditions for their shops. With the likelihood of Abood’s overturn hanging above AFSCME’s head, what can the group do to recover from such a blow?  

“I certainly don’t think you can wait and look at it as recovery,” said Anders Lindall, communications director for Illinois’ AFSCME Council 31. Lindall has been marching in front of cameras and fielding calls about the case since its first rumblings. The preparation, he said, has been ongoing.  

“I think every public service union--not only AFSCME in Illinois and other states but every union in the public service--is talking to their members, educating folks, making sure they understand what this case is really all about. Who is behind it. Who is pulling the strings here. Who will benefit, and who will be hammered. So that if the Trump court does gut the Abood precedent folks in our membership are prepared and know what's coming at them,” he said.

Some may find it difficult to share Lindall and Saunders’ optimism. The spread of Right to Work states, which have barred the collection of agency fees, now seems inevitable to many. What advantages do Illinois unions have in the post-Abood labor landscape?

“One advantage that we have has been a double edged sword. It has been our great challenge of the last couple of years, but in this case it’s an advantage. It’s that I think every AFSCME member in Illinois knows better than anybody else in America what Bruce Rauner is really all about. And that Bruce Rauner really doesn’t have their best interests in mind, that Rauner is about creating chaos, silencing workers, wiping out the labor movement, and gaining more power and influence for himself and his corporate cronies,” said Lindall.

From an election standpoint, it appears labor is starting to realize it does a better job if it runs its own people for elections and talks to its own people on the campaign trail. It allows them to bridge the partisan divide among working class and rural voters which has recently been used to the advantage of anti-union groups.

Lindall sees advantages as well among public sentiment, he said. “When you break it down by age the younger folks are, the stronger their approval of unions will be.”

A recent Gallup poll stands behind his theory. It measured U.S. approval of unions at a 14-year high, with 61% of Americans surveyed saying they support unions. The sharp increase was most notable among Republicans, whose favorable opinion of unions increased 10% over a single year to 42%, thought to be spurred by President Donald Trump’s election.

Further Gallup measurements indicate 39% of Americans want unions have more influence, which Gallup says is the highest recorded figure in the 18 years it has asked this question. Meanwhile, the number of people who want unions to have less power is at an all-time low, 28%.  

Despite criticism from Koch groups that labor unions in Illinois have too much political influence, the non-agency dollars that unions spend on political campaigns amounted to only about 10%, or $30.7 million dollars, of the overall $309.6 million spent during Illinois 2014 state and local elections. According to a 2016 study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, more spending came from large individual donors and self-financed candidates who contributed 18%, or $54.4 million.   

But AFSCME surplus political coffers have extended a recent push. Candidate endorsements are beginning to emerge and overall more union-affiliated candidates are running. Building trades have done well getting their own members elected. Rep. Lawrence Walsh (D-Joliet) is a member of the International Machinist and Aerospace Workers Union. Rep. Bob Rita (D-Blue Island) is an operating engineer and a member of Local #150. Rep. Anthony Deluca (D-Chicago Heights) is a dues paying member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 731. Even Sen. Neil Anderson, a Republican, is a firefighter. The argument for the return of labor in elected office is, at its core, an argument for the return of the citizen legislature.

There are other unique approaches being developed. In Illinois and elsewhere, the Service Employees International Union has begun making inroads into hospitals and private education institutions. At Northeastern Illinois University and the University of Chicago the group has been helping to organize adjuncts’ or doctors’ councils. All the while, SEIU Local 1 is leading one of the largest organizing campaigns in the country at O’Hare Airport.

The group is also a driving force for minimum wage increases in the Fight for 15 campaign, a tactic which further questions whether service sector economics in Illinois might not look wholly different through the lens of labor.

Is this growth spurt an opportunity for a short-term fix? Or do these agitations and public support numbers signal the development of a long-awaited return to labor power?

“The upside is that people are increasingly coming to see that there is another vision for America in that the chief proponents of fairer systems are the working people in their unions,” said Lindall.

“Although the threats are real and they are grave, the time is also ripe for resurgence.”

Governor Bruce Rauner signed pro-choice measure HB40 Thursday, immediately setting off celebrations among abortion advocates and allegations of betrayal from some Republicans and pro-life activists. The move by Rauner, which he announced in a somber Thompson Center press conference in front of eleven women pro-choice activists, but none of the bill sponsors, immediately drew a series of angry responses from conservative legislators, some threatening to support a pro-life governor candidate in the spring.

An Illinois lawsuit could move forward today with the potential to disrupt 40 years of organized labor law, while university pensions still struggle to find funding. Meanwhile, an expansion of abortion access still awaits the governor’s signature.

Lawmaker publicity campaigns continue this week across the state, while state defenders as circle their wagons against oncoming federal cases.

The state is now only days away from finalizing its $2.2 billion contract with Camelot Illinois, LLC for the private management of the Illinois Lottery.

Camelot, which manages the U.K. national lottery, provided the only bid received during the state’s request for proposals. It will replace current private manager Northstar. The 14-day period for protests to the bid, which began Sept. 22, ends this Friday. So far no bid protests have been filed, according to the board’s public information officer.

“Camelot has shown more than a decade of success in managing lotteries throughout the world,” Acting Lottery Director Greg Smith said in his Friday press release. “The Lottery and Camelot Illinois have common goals to responsibly grow the Lottery’s player base, align incentives, eliminate conflicts of interest, introduce new technology and innovation, and ensure responsiveness to public needs and concerns.”

[Notice of Award for Illinois Lottery management contract]

Camelot first attempted to secure the management bid when lottery privatization began in 2009. When the contract was awarded to Northstar, Camelot filed a protest accusing the Department of Revenue of giving unfair advantages to Northstar.

Northstar’s relationship with the state has included several controversial incidents. During the most recent report on the Department of the Lottery, the office of the Auditor General scored the department for a failure to comply with state laws when it found $75 million in lottery funds were sent to Virginia without state authorization to pay prize-winners.


[Results of the last audit of the Department of the Lottery]

State lottery sales totalled $2.85 billion in the past two years, according to the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, with a $14 million overall decline in sales over FY2017. Instant ticket sales accounted for $1.87 billion of the total, an increase of $60 million from last year’s subtotal as instant tickets surge ahead in popularity.

[The most recent listing of all Illinois Lottery Investments]

In their submitted bid, the group writes, “Camelot believes there is the potential to double annual Illinois Lottery Net Income from $0.7 billion today to $1.4 billion by FY2021.”

[Camelot’s full proposal]

Executive director Anita Bedell of Illinois Church Action on Alcohol & Addiction Problems attended an Aug. 14 public hearing where Camelot presented its bid and state procurement employees explained the process. But Bedell still has several concerns.

“When they first had this private management contract we were concerned about how much money the company was actually going to get. Was it going to save money? One of the lottery’s interest is getting more money. Well, the way you get more money is if you market more, and market to those who are addicted, market to young people,” she said.  

[Powerpoint presentation from the Procurement Office on the selection process]

Bedell said unlike most public hearings she attends, she was allowed to ask only one question. Bedell wanted to know whether Camelot planned to expand Keno and scratch-off ticket sales in Illinois, as it had done in Pennsylvania where Keno was outlawed until Camelot entered a similar privatization contract with the state.

“If you have scratch off tickets on the internet it looks just like one of these free games and people could just go through a ton of money that way. I’m also concerned for children because they don’t have a good way to prevent children from gaming online,” Bedell said. “The faster people play, the faster they lose and the more they lose.”

Bedell said Lottery Control Board Acting Director Gregory Smith did not answer. As the bidding process is still technically ongoing, no information has yet been made public regarding the Camelot’s internet lottery plans. When The Daily Line asked about the company’s intentions, Camelot’s spokesperson declined to comment on whether it is interested in pursuing either Keno or internet scratch-off tickets.

[Powerpoint presentation from Camelot]

The state’s procurement file for the contract will be available for public inspection on Friday, Sept. 29. The public may request access to the procurement file by contacting the lottery’s procurement officer, Helen Kim, at [email protected]. If bid no protests are submitted, or after all timely protests are resolved, a contract can be executed.

Northstar will continue to provide management services to the lottery until a successful transition is complete, although the Lottery Control Board declined to confirm when the transition would take effect as the information is within the undisclosed contract.

The next meeting of the Lottery Control Board is Friday, Dec. 8.

As college-bound students continue to leave the state, moves are being made to keep kids in their seats, despite the funding problems faced by public colleges. Meanwhile, advertising buys concerning the Cook County Soda Tax issue have skyrocketed, as Michael Bloomberg dropped nearly $1 million in a week. 

Advocates and opponents of HB40 now await Governor Bruce Rauner’s action on the measure. Sent to the governor’s desk Monday after passing both chambers earlier in May, the legislation protects abortion access for low-income residents, and provides a fail-safe mechanism aimed to protect the right in the event of federal overturn. Rauner previously committed to signing the bill, but later promised to veto it. Although he recently expressed uncertainty as political concerns emerged, Rauner is expected to act soon.

Gov. Bruce Rauner announced a series of veto and bill signings last Friday. Here's a rundown of each action taken.

Vetoes

Widely supported in the House, HB2977 would have required elementary schools to include cursive handwriting instruction in curriculum. In his veto message, Gov. Bruce Rauner called the bill an unfunded mandate and wrote that, “If the General Assembly believes that cursive writing instruction should be required in elementary schools because it will improve student outcomes, it should be included in the Illinois State Learning Standards and funded accordingly.”

HB3449, the Geolocation Privacy Protection Act, received attention from several groups when Rauner announced his Friday veto of the bill. The measure started as a consumer-data protection effort, but lost most of its teeth after five floor amendments. Rauner’s message called on stronger FTC enforcement of current federal laws and said the “bill would result in job loss across the state without materially improving privacy protections for Illinoisans.”

Repeating his admonition against unfunded mandates, Rauner also vetoed HB3745 which would require schools to give designated space to ads for free after-school events of student interest.

The Department of Health and Family Services will undergo one less audit with the veto of SB321. The agency is already on schedule for its normal audit, which Rauner advised could be used to further audit the department’s Medicaid Managed Care routines, as requested by the bill. In his message, Rauner added that “requiring a separate audit is expensive, time consuming, and unnecessary.”


SB419 would have allowed downstate firefighters to buy into a pension system’s Tier 1 benefits, and provided for a retroactive cost-of-living adjustment payment as well as retroactive service credits. Rauner’s veto cites the mounting pension problems in downstate systems and adds: “These service credits are instituted without a full and accurate accounting of their cost.”

New Laws

Health


The Home Medical Equipment Service Act will no longer sunset in 2018. Per HB3450, the law has been extended to 2028. A regulation for audiology and speech pathologists, which would have sunset this year, has now been modified and revived under SB771. New requirements are established for specialists who received their credentials outside of the U.S.

Safety-Net Hospitals are now exempt from certain insurance requirements when they do business with the state under SB1833. 


The Department of Labor will create a new system to manage employee misclassifications under SB1978. The system aims to provide public verification of home health employees’ licensure, but will also track investigations into licensed professions across several industries, specifically home health and nursing.

Children’s community-based health care centers must now provide a home-like environment and are limited to no more than 16 children in care at a time, per HB763.


Those who seek state assistance because they are too poor to bury their loved ones, will now be offered the option of instead donating the decedent’s body to the state so it can be used for medical research, per HB3488.

Courts


Under HB622, when a party files an appeal against a decision by the Labor Relations Board, their appeal no longer triggers an automatic stay of the board’s enforcement. Meanwhile, HB690 raises the standard of conduct for employment agencies handling temporary and day laborers, including wage requirements and regularly reporting their statistics to the Department of Labor.

Caseworkers with the Department of Children and Family Services are tasked with more responsibilities under HB2589, which requires caseworkers to attend additional hearings for youths in state custody. The mandate provides no source of funding for additional hires.

The Law Enforcement Sexual Assault Investigation Act, HB270, now requires certain investigators to undergo specific sexual assault training and provides that investigators may not be employed by the same law enforcement agency which employs the subject of their investigation.

A new sliding scale of alimony and maintenance rates have been created under HB2537, which also loosens regulations on a divorcée returning to her maiden name.

The Women’s Division of the Department of Corrections was codified under HB3904, sponsored by Rep. Juliana Stratton (D-Chicago). In his signing statement, Rauner advises that his signature comes with the legislature’s assurance that a trailer bill will follow, removing Senate confirmation requirement for the director of the division. “As the Director is confirmed with the advice and consent of Senate, he or she has been entrusted with leading the Department and should therefore be able to choose a candidate he or she deems fit to oversee the Women’s Division of the Department.”

Environment

Bobcat hunting allowances are increased from last year under HB3399, although limits remain in place in northern regions where bobcat populations have not yet fully recovered to their former levels.

A portion of Delavan Township Park District in Tazwell County is now, under HB2572, allowed to be transferred to the Department of Military Affairs via the Adjutant General.  

Education


SB1290 raises the debt limit for three school districts in the city of LaSalle, and provides a mechanism for an intergovernmental agreement which would allow partial revenues from a tax increment financing district to be used toward the service of the school district’s debt.

Instead of five, schools now have 10 business days to provide parents’ with a copy of their child’s school records, under SB1483. A community college district can now incorporate the district’s number into the name of its board of trustees if it so chooses, per SB1671.

Labor

Changes to federal transportation expenses are enacted under HB2953. Any purchases or projects requiring $40,000 or more of Federal Transportation Authority spending are now subject to public notice and bidding laws.

10 professional licensing and regulatory acts are repealed under SB1821, which enacts a 2020 sunset date. The law also provides some new exceptions for real estate regulations concerning timeshare properties.


People receiving revenue and proceeds from oil or gas products may now have to report more of their income under HB1542. Exceptions exist for trust estates and for those products emerging from coal fields.

 

Although the General Assembly is out of session, there's a busy week of administrative board meetings.

Tuesday, September 26

09:30 a.m. - The Health Facilities and Services Review Board will consider permit approval for a lengthy list of facilities during its 6-hour meeting at the Inn at 835, located at 835 S. 2nd St. in Springfield. Agenda.

10:00 a.m. - The Racing Board will meet in the Thompson Center in Chicago to award racing permits for 2018 and allocate racing dates. Agenda.

2:30 p.m. - The Emergency Services Management Association will hold its monthly meeting via teleconference. No agenda has been released, but interested parties may join the call by dialing 712-432-3066, providing access code 980930#.

Although no time or agenda has been released for the group, The Department of Child and Family Services’ Institutional Review Board will meet in Suite 6-100, the Southwest Conference Room at the Thompson Center in Chicago.

Wednesday, September 27

9:30 a.m. - The Human Rights Commission is slated for several hearings and meetings. Panel D Hearings will be held in the DHS Murdoch Room of the Thompson Center in Chicago. Panel D Agenda. The commission in full will meet at 10:30 a.m. Commission Agenda. Panel C hearings will begin at 11:30 a.m. Panel C Agenda.

10:00 a.m. - The Executive Board of the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency is scheduled to meet, but has not released a location or agenda.

10:00 a.m. - The Legislative Audit Commission will meet in Suite C-600 of the Bilandic Building in Chicago. Audit reviews include the Department of Revenue, Department of the Lottery and the Department of Children and Family Services among others. Agenda.

10:30 a.m. - The Thoroughbred Breeders Fund Advisory Board will meet but has not released an agenda or location. The body normally meets at the Springfield Fairgrounds.

10:30 a.m. - The Illinois Commerce Commission will meet at the State of Illinois Building in Chicago to consider three railway cases. Agenda.

Thursday, September 28

10:00 a.m. - The Illinois Chamber’s Annual Meeting at the Drake Hotel in Chicago will feature keynote speaker Enbridge CEO Al Monaco and awards presented by Nicor Gas. Program.

Friday, September 39

9:00 a.m. - The Housing Development Authority (HDA) will hold three meetings in Suite 1000 at 111 E. Wacker St. in Chicago. The morning begins with the Audit Committee, which has not released its agenda.

10:00 a.m. - The HDA Finance Committee will then meet in the Log Cabin Suite.

11:00 a.m. - The HDA Board of Directors’ meeting concludes the day, although no agenda has been released by the body.  

Every Friday we present some of the more interesting campaign finance information. Unless otherwise stated, reports are from the last seven days.