SB 1905 designed to ban local Right to Work in Illinois

The Illinois House Labor and Commerce Committee has passed a bill to prohibit municipalities in Illinois from enacting local Right-to-Work measures. The bill now heads to the full House of Representatives for a hearing.

A bill moving in the Illinois House of Representatives would ban local governments from adopting Right-to-Work laws, even though this policy benefits workers and employers.

While Democratic lawmakers are moving forward with Senate Bill 1905, called the “Collective Bargaining Freedom Act,” the legality of local Right-to-Work rules, such as the one the village of Lincolnshire adopted in 2015, is already playing out in the courts.

If SB 1905 passes, it would put Illinois even farther out of step with neighboring states, all of which have Right to Work.

Union membership is growing in Right-to-Work states such as Indiana. Since enacting Right to Work in 2012, the Hoosier State has seen union membership grow by 58,000, compared with union membership growth of only 11,000 in Illinois, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Companies have announced billions in new business investment in Kentucky in the few months since the state passed key economic reforms, including Right to Work.

In the face of Illinois losing jobs to neighboring growth-friendly states, Jim Schultz, former head of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, divulged that over 1,100 businesses have blacklisted Illinois for not having a Right-to-Work law. Polling by CNBC determined that two-thirds of the members of CNBC’s Global CFO Council ranked Right to Work as “important” or “very important” in deciding where to locate jobs.

Despite Illinois’ neighbors seeing success after implementing Right to Work, the House Labor and Commerce Committee passed SB 1905 on a 15-10-1 vote along party lines.