Emanuel To Rauner: "Chicago Will Not Be A Right-To-Work City"
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Gov. Bruce Rauner has suggested creating so-called "right-to-work zones" across Illinois, but Mayor Rahm Emanuel and several aldermen have said that won't happen in Chicago on their watch.
"I want to be very clear. As long as I'm mayor, Chicago will not be a right-to-work city," Emanuel said Wednesday, after introducing a City Council resolution calling for public hearings to declare opposition to the governor's plan, which would allow municipalities to limit the power of labor unions by giving the workers the option of not joining unions or paying dues even in jobs that have been unionized. The zones also would limit prevailing wage and worker's compensation laws.
"This has been an issue the governor has been advocating. I firmly disagree with it on a series of fronts, economically and otherwise," Emanuel said. "I do not believe that, as it relates to right to work it would be pulling — our goal is to build up the middle class, not to pull a rug from underneath them."
The mayor said right-to-work zones could potentially dismantle labor unions that have protected workers' rights, and helped support middle class families.
"Our competition is not Mississippi, Alabama, and Kentucky wages," the mayor said. "Chicago's economy has been growing economically, both with expanding job opportunities, new corporations, a drop in unemployment. We've been doing it by a strategy of providing opportunity."
Although the mayor's proposed resolution would not carry any legal weight, it would allow him and the aldermen to go on record against one of the most prominent pieces of Rauner's agenda so far during his time in office.