The announcement last week that the Illinois AFL-CIO was withdrawing from the “agreed bill process” at least 40 years after its inception took almost everyone by surprise, but nobody was really shocked.
For years, whenever the group engaged in carefully constructed negotiations with business interests on workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance, labor leaders would grumble privately that most other states don’t have a similar process.
Unlike elsewhere, their hands were tied by a long-ago edict that the two sides would have to work out their differences and that the state’s executive branch would help referee the talks by providing research into the issues under discussion, and members from all four caucuses would participate. After that, the two parties in both legislative chambers would examine the final bills and agree to put votes on them.
The process hasn’t always worked well. But it has had some notable successes. For years, the state’s inordinately high workers’ compensation costs were the talk of the nation (almost like the pension issue eventually became). But everyone hunkered down, and now Illinois’ workers’ compensation costs are about in the middle of the state rankings.
The Illinois AFL-CIO leadership claimed in its letter to the governor, Democratic leaders and negotiators that the agreed bill process has been honored except during the 89th General Assembly, when Republicans controlled the governor’s office and both legislative chambers. That GOP bill cut unemployment insurance taxes by $120 million. Not mentioned, however, was that labor had its payback after Rod Blagojevich was elected governor and both chambers were controlled by the Democratic Party and set aside the agreed bill process.
The AFL-CIO focused mainly on its frustration with Republican-controlled states and the Trump administration taking rights and benefits away from workers. As one top labor official told me: “At the national level, we’re seeing the national Republicans just roll over labor rights. I mean, [expletive deleted] Trump canceled 800,000 peoples’ collective bargaining rights, and nobody says a word. And I’m supposed to sit here and work with the same [expletive deleted] people who put Trump in? I can’t do that.”
The union official pointed to the House Republicans’ inability to put the agreed number of votes on a bill last year to slightly raise workers’ compensation rates to make sure the Workers’ Compensation Commission could continue to operate. The bill passed overwhelmingly, but that’s not the point. An agreed bill is supposed to have a structured roll call to make sure vulnerable members can opt out. “So that’s kind of, you know, it’s like, what are we doing?”
Other Democrats and union officials I talked to said the labor organization’s withdrawal from the age-old process probably won’t change what happens at the statehouse.
“It’s kinda just semantics,” said one prominent Democratic legislator who has also worked in the agreed bill process. “We can still put a table together and negotiate [stuff] with labor and business no matter what name we give the process.”
Another union official said much the same: “I think it’s going to be an agreed bill process without being called the agreed bill process,” the union official said.
And Senate President Don Harmon’s official statement via his spokesperson seemed to agree with that sentiment: “The Senate Democrats will continue our ongoing commitment to look out for working families and their rights while also engaging the business community in an effort to bring prosperity to all.”
But the “business community” is most definitely spooked. During a recent background conversation, business leaders pointed to what they said was the reason why the agreed bill process was created. A 1982 bill cut benefits and increased employer costs, which resulted in some legislative defeats. Legislators, particularly Democrats, were looking for some political cover, so the process was created.
“On workers’ comp, we went from third-highest in the country to 23rd-highest in the country,” a business group leader pointed out.
But now they’re very worried that the unions will use their overwhelming pro-labor Democratic super-majorities to muscle through changes that could force Illinois back into the bad old days of high costs for workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance.
And they’re frustrated that organized labor is using the national political climate to justify withdrawing from a process that has actually worked here.
“They can’t point at Illinois as a problem, so they’re pointing at the national,” observed one biz leader.
The AFL-CIO has a proposal to maintain funding for workers’ compensation administration, and some say that an unemployment insurance package is on the horizon. So I guess we’ll see pretty soon how this all plays out.
Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and CapitolFax.com.