CHICAGO, Ill. – Illinois Democrats are taking another victory lap connected to the 2022 election.
Governor JB Pritzker and union leaders Thursday celebrated the passage of the Workers Rights Amendment to the Illinois Constitution — giving people the right to join a union or to collectively bargain in the state.
“Illinois laborers have been at the forefront of fighting for fair wages, for a fair workday,” said Pritzker, at a luncheon with union leaders in Chicago. “So, it’s only fitting that it’s Illinois that is the first state in the nation to enshrine in its state Constitution the right to organize, the right to unionize.”
Pritzker says it was a grassroots campaign that got the Workers Rights Amendment passed — and, by grassroots, he means by union leaders.
“Because of your hard work, we sealed the deal,” said Pritzker. “Every worker from Chicago to Peoria to East Saint Louis, now has the Constitutional right to organize their workplace, no matter what. You did this.”
But not all of Peoria did. While voters in Peoria County voted in favor of the Workers Rights Amendment in the Illinois Constitution with 56 percent of voters supporting it, voters in Tazewell County rejected it with a 54 percent majority.
Statewide, it was approved with 58 percent of the vote.
Opponents say the amendment gives unions too much authority, and will drive more businesses out of the state.
