Illinois lawmakers scale back progress in ‘management bill’

by Paul Kersey Last year the Illinois General Assembly decided that up to 3,580 supervisors in state government would not be subject to unionization. Passing this legislation, dubbed the “management bill,” meant that Illinois would restore a well-established principle of labor law – that supervisors need to be strictly accountable to policymakers and the people...

by Paul Kersey

Last year the Illinois General Assembly decided that up to 3,580 supervisors in state government would not be subject to unionization. Passing this legislation, dubbed the “management bill,” meant that Illinois would restore a well-established principle of labor law – that supervisors need to be strictly accountable to policymakers and the people who pay the bills. In the case of state workers, that would mean the governor and taxpayers.

Lawmakers backtracked from that in the last days of the spring legislative session, passing new legislation that will allow more than 20 job titles to remain covered by unions. Many of these state workers are in supervisory roles, meaning that they will have to direct union-represented workers themselves. A few may in fact be “confidential” employees, meaning that they could be called upon to assist the administration in collective bargaining.

Union representation of supervisors creates conflicts of interest. The governor should be able to count on high-ranking state workers to implement his policies. He should also be able to direct and assign supervisors as needed without union interference. For confidential employees the conflict is starker: they may be asked to provide information or perform tasks that undermine the same unions that represent them.

This bill passed by large margins in both the Senate and the House, but the governor should veto it anyway and force the General Assembly to override it. While the basic idea of the management bill remains intact, this attempt to back away from what had been done earlier reflects poorly on the General Assembly. The people, speaking through elected officials, are supposed to control the operations of state government. The unions are not.