Below is from: http://www.sj-r.com/article/20150525/OPINION/150529731
I applaud your story about Gov. Rauner's attempt to prop up his wrong-headed, anti-working-families agenda by buying the votes of state legislative Republicans with his war chest of political contributions.
Unfortunately, Illinois is saddled with a governor whose ideas are so preposterous and mean spirited — in addition to many of them being illegal and unconstitutional — that this legal bribery is the closest he has come to do doing his actual job since he took office. The rest of his time has been divided between touring the state to campaign for illegal attacks on workers and shaking down wealthy donors who pay to participate in business round tables and other fundraisers.
I was disappointed in one aspect of the story, however. It repeats Rauner's disingenuous description of his attacks on unions, as opposed to the reality that no one can be "compelled to pay union dues." Workers who are represented by unions but choose not to join receive all the contractual and representational benefits of the union's negotiated contract, and they pay a fair-share fee for those benefits.
Rauner's right-to-freeload plan would not change the current legal requirement for unions to represent nonmembers equally. Instead, it would weigh down unions with unfunded mandates and thus lower wages and benefits. It would decrease worker spending, slow local economies that depend on working customers, and decrease tax revenues. This is the real "turnaround agenda."
Ricky Baldwin
Urbana
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