As of Wednesday, April 3, 2019, the Illinois House gave final passage to a bill that has already cleared the Illinois Senate that would clearly establish that only State Government, not Local Government (i.e, city, village, municipality, etcetera), would have the exclusive authority to enact laws governing what are known as Union Security Agreements. These are Agreements between Employers and Unions that establish the extent to which workers can be compelled to belong to a Union and whether or not the Employer will collect dues and fees on behalf of the Union.

This Bill is in response to legislation that had passed the Village of Lincolnshire in 2015 that established a “Right-To-Work” in the Village of Lincolnshire and was overturned by the U.S. District Federal Court and Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. In passing the Bill, the prime spokesperson, Representative Lance Yednock, an Ottawa Democrat, alleged that when Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, it gave exclusive authority to the States and not Local Governments to determine the “Right-To-Work” issue.

While Representative Yednock may have an opinion about this issue, he is not totally correct in that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2016, upheld a law granting a Local Municipality the right to determine the “Right-To-Work” issue. It should be noted that that case was denied Appeal by the U.S. Supreme Court and is still “good law” in the Sixth Circuit.

Whether or not Representative Yednock is correct or not, the passage of this Bill clearly clarifies for the author what he has believed for years-that the Democratic Party and Unions are “in bed together” in the State of Illinois!

Questions? Contact attorney Walter Liszka in our Chicago office at (312) 629-9300 or by email at waliszka@wesselssherman.com.

Note from Editor: This article, like all articles in our Illinois Client Update, are strictly the opinion of the author and not of the law firm as a whole.