Big labor’s effort to override Gov. Bruce Rauner’s amendatory veto of a harmful prevailing wage bill failed this week as they lacked the votes in the Illinois House.
SB 2964, which requires the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) to use collective bargaining agreements to set prevailing wage rates throughout the state, was amendatorily vetoed by Governor Rauner. In the veto, he cited the unconstitutional nature of allowing a private entity to set public wage rates as well as the elimination of local control in setting the rates.
The Senate overrode the veto in the first half of the veto session. This week, the House took up the motion to override, and it failed 70-42, leaving the governor’s AV to stand. It needed 71 votes to pass.
NFIB was opposed to the original bill, and in a letter encouraged the governor to veto it when it got to his desk. Current law allows IDOL to survey contractors, both union and nonunion, to ensure the prevailing wage rate accurately reflects wages being paid in any given locality.
Illinois is a diverse state, with some areas being more heavily unionized than others. Tying a downstate community to a collective bargaining agreement based in another region results in inflated wage rates that don’t reflect the actual wages in those communities. Using inflated wage rates also deters nonunion contractors from bidding on jobs and decreases competition for public work.
By reducing competition, local governmental bodies and school districts are often left with only one or two bidders who may not even be from their community. Taxpayers ultimately foot the bill for these inflated wages and are the real losers.
Other action during the veto session
- HJRCA 62, passed 84-18. This is a proposed state constitutional amendment saying that no tax-increase legislation may be passed during a “lame duck session” unless it receives a three-fifths vote. Lame duck session is identified as on or after the date of a general election but on or before the second Wednesday of January following the general election vote. Once a constitutional amendment passes both Chambers it appears on the next general election ballot which would be in 2018. No vote was taken in the Senate.
- HR 1494, passed 87-12. This House Resolution states no tax increase legislation may be considered by the Illinois General Assembly during the “lame duck” timeframe. The “lame duck” period under the resolution is Jan. 1-11, 2017.
- SB 2814, passed the House 63-38; the Senate, 32-18. A bailout for energy giant Exelon passed this week. A proposal to subsidize Exelon in exchange for them keeping two nuclear power plants on line has been in the works for over a year. While the subsidy keeps 4200 jobs in place at plants in Clinton and the Quad Cities, the ratepayers will foot the bill for the bailout. NFIB opposed the measure because of the increased energy costs to small and medium-sized businesses.
- HB 4248, subject matter hearing. A subject matter only hearing was held on HB 4248, a workers’ compensation reform bill introduced by House GOP Leader Jim Durkin in 2015. While the language in the bill did contain key components of any real reform, such as changing our causation standard, Leader Jim Durkin felt it no longer accurately reflected some of the negotiations that had taken place over the last year. Speaker Madigan abruptly sent the bill to the House Labor Committee after the governor said it would be a good “starting point” for further negotiations. The Republicans and the governor felt the move was disingenuous and counterproductive to real movement on the issue. The committee simply took testimony from both sides of the issue, which was mostly a rehash of the same arguments, and did not take a vote on the bill.
