A little more than two months before Election Day, several local congressional Democrats joined the U.S. secretary of labor in Chicago on Thursday to tout the Biden administration’s efforts to help blue-collar workers and retirees while rallying union support as Illinois prepares to vote on a referendum that would guarantee employees the right to organize and bargain collectively.
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh appeared at a union training center on the West Side, ostensibly to promote federal action that’s been taken to ensure pension funds for millions of workers and retirees don’t fail.
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But the event, held just a week and a few days before Labor Day, also had political overtones as it gave the local Democrats some talking points to show voters that President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package has something in it for average Americans. It also served as a rallying point for the collective bargaining referendum question.
“This is a great moment for labor. Labor is really on the rise right now,” said U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Evanston Democrat, speaking to a crowd of orange-clad workers at the facility run by the Laborers’ International Union of North America’s Laborers, or LiUNA. “How many of you are planning to vote?”
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The referendum question, which will be on the ballot along with the race for governor, has been criticized by Republicans and conservative organizations that argue it will give too much power to unions and result in higher taxes. The legislation would be the first of its kind in the country, Schakowsky told the Tribune.
“Big corporations are spending millions and millions of dollars right now to try and keep workers from organizing. I think this is the fight right now,” she said.
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In addition to the statewide referendum question, Walsh also spoke about a federal rule that cleared its final hurdle last month and is tied to the coronavirus relief package. Tucked inside the package was a bailout of at least $74 billion that ensures about 200 multi-employer pension funds remain solvent.
Walsh last month joined Biden in Ohio to promote the move in a speech where the president highlighted his efforts to convince blue-collar voters that he was in their corner.
On Thursday, Walsh said that if the package, called the Special Financial Assistance Program, had not been passed, millions of retired union workers could have lost benefits from pension programs headed toward insolvency.
“Not what they expected the day they signed up for their local union,” said Walsh, who is a LiUNA member. “Today, those workers and retirees will get their full pension benefit.”
The financial support is expected to help keep the pension funds above water for about 30 years.
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“All of us know somebody who worked all their life, did all the right things, worked for a company that set them on a pension, and then that company went bankrupt and the pension got wiped out,” U.S. Rep. Sean Casten of Downers Grove said. U.S. Reps. Danny Davis of Chicago and Bill Foster of Naperville also attended the event.
Terry Healy, the vice president for LiUNA, said no Republicans voted for the pension protections, which passed in March 2021 as a part of the sprawling American Rescue Plan.
“We would’ve had millions of people in poverty, and they wouldn’t vote for it,” the union leader said. “The Biden administration is taking care of workers.”
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