Citizens deserve a seat in the room — it’s time to require open meetings for collective bargaining

On February 28, 2013, Illinois’ largest government union, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, which represents nearly 40,000 state employees, completed months of negotiations with state government over a new contract, yet taxpayers were locked out of the bargaining room during all of them. Since that time, taxpayers are still waiting to...

On February 28, 2013, Illinois’ largest government union, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, which represents nearly 40,000 state employees, completed months of negotiations with state government over a new contract, yet taxpayers were locked out of the bargaining room during all of them. Since that time, taxpayers are still waiting to see the contract.

The same was true during the Chicago Teachers Union strike in September 2012 when taxpayers were locked out of negotiations between the union and school officials.  As it turns out, the strike was most likely illegal, but the parents and taxpayers didn’t know it because they were denied a seat in the room during negotiations.

The truth is that the law doesn’t require these negotiations to be closed; instead, government officials are deliberately choosing to close them.

The Illinois Open Meetings Act requires that citizens get advance notice and have the right to attend when public bodies – such as city councils, school boards and other units of local government – meet to conduct business. While the law exempts specified meetings from this requirement, these exemptions are optional and mostly involve public safety or privacy concerns, such as meetings considering litigation involving a public body, student discipline and confidential law enforcement operations. But the collective bargaining exemption just doesn’t fit with the others. Further, while both the Illinois Labor Relations Act and the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act exempt collective bargaining from the Open Meetings Act, neither labor act requires negotiations to be closed.

Accountability, transparency and the basic right to know how our tax dollars are being spent are reasons enough not only to open contract negotiations to the citizens, as the law currently allows, but amend the law to require it. In the meantime, until Illinois law is amended to require open meetings for collective bargaining, call on your state and local officials and the unions and demand a seat in the room. If they say no, ask them what they have to hide.

Last December, the Illinois Policy Institute’s Liberty Justice Center called on Illinois lawmakers to give citizens a seat in room during government union collective bargaining and drafted legislation that has been introduced by Rep. Jeanne Ives. The bill, House Bill 3310, can be found here.

In addition to drafting amendments to Illinois law, LJC General Counsel Diane Cohen and Paul Kersey, the Illinois Policy Institute’s director of labor policy, have drafted proposals to Wisconsin’s Open Meetings law and are also available for consultation with any state legislators, think tanks or citizens who wish to amend their state’s laws to require open meetings for government union collective bargaining.