Organized labor can’t make up its mind for the Chicago mayor election

Remaining neutral?

It's intriguing to see the way that the various factions that comprise organized labor and unions are shaping up with regards to the upcoming mayoral election run-off.

With the "excitement" factor amongst the electorate focusing on the campaign of Lori Lightfoot for mayor, it seems that Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is counting on having the "reliable" factor of having labor unions on her side.

Siding with one-time member

BECAUSE UNIONS DO have the ability to get their members to turn out and actually cast ballots in accordance with the desires of union leadership.

If that one poll commissioned by Stand by Children Illinois that shows Lori Lightfoot with a 2-1 vote ratio in her favor really has any truth to it, then Preckwinkle really is going to need every bit of organized labor support if she’s to have the least bit of a chance to have victory in the April 2 run-off election.

Which is why Camp Preckwinkle surely was disappointed to learn this week that the Chicago Federation of Labor – the organization that oversees so many union locals – has decided to remain neutral.

The union leadership may well be taking the honest attitude – one that says their interviews with the two mayoral candidates have such similar views and attitudes on issues related to workers and labor that they can’t pick between the two.

PRECKWINKLE: Her labor backing unsure

ANYBODY WHO THINKS there’d be a serious difference between a Mayor Lightfoot and a Mayor Preckwinkle is exaggerating the fact.

Although it seems that the labor unions that backed the campaign of Susana Mendoza during the first phase of the municipal election cycle are basing their endorsement decisions on the fact that Preckwinkle focused much of her negative campaigning against Susana.

Lightfoot could get some union member support just based on the fact that they want to spite Preckwinkle come April 2. And since the Preckwinkle campaign is basing its hopes so heavily on a strong union member voter turnout, the lack of an endorsement could result in enough voter apathy that could result in a Lightfoot victory.

LIGHTFOOT: Uncertainty a plus for Lori?

Perhaps even enough that justify the idea that Lightfoot is leading Preckwinkle by a 58 percent to 30 percent margin.

SO I’M SURE that Preckwinkle is determined to exaggerate the significance of one union that seems willing to stand by her side – as in the Chicago Teachers Union. Which remembers that back in the days before she became a political person, Toni was a school teacher.

The union issued its own statement saying that the 2-1 voter ratio support for Lightfoot was “stupid.” They were quick to recall that Stand by Children was a group that supported efforts back in 2011 to raise the standards by which the teachers’ union could go on strike.

As they see it, the group was nothing more than an organization promoting the anti-labor beliefs of Bruce Rauner – who we all know later went on to his one term as Illinois governor, where he tried imposing his anti-union agenda on all of us only to have the voters reject his re-election bid last year.

Should we disregard the idea that Lori Lightfoot has such a huge lead, or that people are that opposed to the idea of a “Mayor Preckwinkle?” Personally, I think the number of people surveyed for the poll (only about 400) is too small to reach a serious conclusion about anything.

BUT IT WOULD seem that Preckwinkle has at least the teachers’ union remaining on her side. Although, to be truthful, it’s not unusual for the teachers’ union and other unions to be in disagreement with each other.

Will Preckwinkle move from left to right side of bldg. following Election Day?

With the schoolteachers often taking more progressive stances on issues as opposed to the unions that represent workers who earn their living with physical labor.

Although the idea that Preckwinkle has the more liberal union members potentially on her side would fit in with the Preckwinkle campaign strategy of convincing voters that she, and not Lightfoot, is the true progressive for people to pick from come Election Day.

Which is a stance she would not have had to think of taking if the originally-expected scenario of a run-off election between Preckwinkle and William Daley were reality.

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Illinois becoming a “champion” in fight against right-to-work concept?

Thinking back to those couple of years in the mid-1990s when the Republican Party had an overwhelming majority in state government and pushed many purely ideological measures into law (many of which ultimately were struck down by the state Supreme Court), I can’t help but wonder why the GOP leaders of that era didn’t make the move for “right-to-work.”

Such laws that are meant to make it next to impossible for labor unions to establish themselves in businesses within their boundaries exist in 22 states (with five southern and southwestern states going so far as to write such ideas into their state constitutions) would have been totally in line with the kinds of things that the Illinois General Assembly did back in the pair of years that Lee Daniels could call himself Illinois House speaker.

BUT THEY DIDN’T do it, and our Legislature these days isn’t about to entertain any such silly concept now.

Which may well be why our officials in Illinois are devoting significant amounts of attention to Indiana, where the state Legislature’s Republican leadership has gotten the bite to want to impose right-to-work.

The Times of Northwest Indiana newspaper is reporting how the Chicago Federation of Labor, along with Chicago-area locals of the International Union of Operating Engineers, are having their people staff telephone banks.

They’re making the kinds of calls to people in Indiana to try to make them realize just how ridiculous right-to-work is. In short, Illinois-based organized labor officials are pitching in for the effort to kill off the “right-to-work” movement that may well become this year’s ugly issue in Indiana politics.

REMEMBER LAST YEAR when Democratic legislators thwarted GOP partisan efforts in the Legislature by hiding out in Urbana, Ill.?

Reading the reports about how those Democrats are denying the Legislature their presence in recent days makes me wonder if they’re going to be making a return trip to our state in coming months.

Now I’m aware that some people reading this commentary are probably getting seriously P’Oed at my rhetoric. Not that I’m overly concerned. I get equally offended at theirs, and this simply is one of those issues where we’re going to disagree.

But I truly am pleased to see that Illinois people would be willing to pitch in on this particular issue – even though I’m sure some ideologues are going to go out of their way to characterize our labor officials as meddlers, of sorts. Butting in on an issue that’s none of their business.

BECAUSE NO ONE is threatening to impose right-to-work in Illinois. If they tried, they’d likely be laughed at. And I write that sentence knowing full well that the most recent Republican nominee for governor (state Sen. William Brady, R-Bloomington) tossed out his own rhetoric during his 2010 campaign hinting he wouldn’t object if someone tried to bring “right-to-work” to Illinois.

Now what gets me this worked up over this issue?

Primarily, it is one where the ideological rhetoric always used to defend right-to-work strikes me as being such a distortion of the truth.

Supporters of such laws that make it illegal to tell someone they must join a labor union in order to work at a place whose workers are represented by that union claim that it is denying employment to people.

WHEN ALL IT really does is makes it completely legal for employers to use tactics meant to scare people out of thinking of joining a labor union. If anyone is acting in a way meant to interfere with the will of a worker, I’d say it is the ones who push for right-to-work.

Personally, the best-paying jobs I have ever had were the ones where organized labor was involved (I’m a former member of the American Newspaper Guild, local 222). They also were the only ones that, upon laying me off, gave me anything resembling advance warning and something resembling a severance package.

The people who think that is a problem are likely the ones who, deep down, have little respect for the employee – without whom the employers wouldn’t have a product to sell or service to provide.

Insofar as Indiana this year, I’m not about to predict how their “right-to-work” fight is going to be resolved. I don’t know enough about the Legislature dynamic in Indianapolis to make anything other than a pointless prediction.

I CAN ONLY hope that our Illinois people will have some significant influence in determining the outcome.

Because I can’t help but notice that while most of the “right-to-work” states are in the Deep South and the Southwestern U.S., they do stretch as far north as Iowa.

It would be a real shame if Illinois got surrounded on both sides (to the east and to the northwest) by “right-to-work” states. That may be the real motivation for Illinois labor officials to get into this fight.

Then again, having both of those states as “right-to-work” likely would go a long way toward reinforcing the concept of Illinois as a beacon of sanity in this part of the country when it comes to certain social issues.

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