The February 16th editorial in the Chicago Tribune was a call to battle against public sector trade unionism. The editorial is titled, “Get tough, Gov. Pritzker, on AFSCME.” (AFSCME is the local government workers union.) It makes clear what a belligerent section of employers want to see happen. The new Illinois state budget “…should include sacrifice from the nearly 40,000 state workers… It is high time the state’s unionized workforce be part of the ‘shared sacrifice’ our politicians so often expect of the private sector workforce.”
The editorial continues, referring to Illinois’ Democratic governor JB Pritzker, “Does Pritzker have it in him to demand more of the workforce he oversees? Force a revisiting of the contract he approved? He better.” The editors center on two demands: personnel cuts and increased use of furlough days (enforced unpaid days of absence).
Class hostility
What’s behind this display of class hostility? The immediate cause is that on February 17, the governor is going to present the 2022 budget to the state legislature in Springfield. The state is in a serious economic situation. The state owes $4.9 billion in unpaid bills, has $4.3 billion in short-term debt, and is $141 billion behind in payments to public workers’ pension funds. Pritzker is already calling for $700 million in spending cuts.
The pandemic has obviously had a disastrous effect on state finances. Spending on health care has had to skyrocket while the economic downturn has reduced the tax revenues coming in. This is a national pattern. Moody’s Analytics estimates that over the next one and a half years state and local governments will have budget shortfalls of somewhere between $172 billion and $308 billion. Across the country, 1.3 million public sector workers have already been laid off. Biden’s new stimulus plan envisions assistance to state governments. However, how much money will actually survive through the process of Capitol Hill wheeling and dealing and actually make it to the states is anyone’s guess.
In this context, the capitalist class wishes to make sure that they will be not taxed to pay for state services. The capitalists have a clear answer: if states are short of money, let them just cut social services and reduce the living standards of public sector workers. This is the overall approach that the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board is applying in the current Illinois situation.
There are three other aspects of this editorial that need to be looked at. First, if the Tribune gets its way there will be fewer state workers. One of the reasons why the Covid pandemic has been so bad in Illinois is precisely the prior running down of state healthcare services. Now is the time for more state healthcare funding, not less. Cutting back on the number of state healthcare workers will only exacerbate the pandemic.
Secondly, the editorial makes a big point that private sector workers have been treated terribly during the pandemic, now it’s the turn of public sector workers to be treated terribly. “Taking unpaid furlough days should not be a big ‘ask’ compared with what the private sector has endured under Pritzker’s shutdown orders… Pritzker has protected and prioritized the state’s union workers at the expense of everyone else.”
This is not just an attempt to divide public sector workers from private sector workers. It shows a deeper thorn in the side of the ruling class. They have managed to drive union membership in the private sector down to 6.3%. In the public sector, union membership is at a much higher 34.8%. Driving public sector union membership down to private sector levels is on the wish list of a good portion of the ruling class. This is exactly what was behind the Supreme Court‘s Janus decision. The bosses want to use the turmoil of the pandemic to further their anti-union agenda.
Using the Democrats to get what the bosses want
Thirdly, the editorial takes up the relationship between the Democratic Party and the labor movement. While Trump’s exit from the White House has brought welcome relief from his reckless and reactionary presidency, the Biden administration has merely ushered in a return to the pre-Trump political status quo. The Democratic Party and its internal institutions cannot advance working class interests. In fact, the particular nature of the Democratic Party is that it is a ruling class institution that has a special ability to absorb and head off working class discontent. From their own standpoint, The Tribune editorial writers understand this function of the Democratic Party perfectly. They call for Pritzker to use the weight and influence that the Democratic Party has in the labor movement to make labor bend to the bosses’ interests. In this case, it means laying off of government workers.
The Editors show Pritzker the precedents they wish him to follow. The section is worth quoting in full.
Other blue state governors confronted their unionized workforces months ago and showed leadership in doing so. Democratic governors in Wisconsin, California and New York cut public sector pay, instituted across-the-board spending cuts throughout state government, froze hiring and scheduled raises, and prepared for what would become a nearly years long economic slump due to COVID-19. They did it to protect all taxpayers.
California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, met with his union leaders months ago to negotiate pay cuts. “None of us will be immune from tightening our belts and helping to support the cause and helping those most in need,” he said.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo in New York has delayed scheduled pay raises for his unionized workers several times. He didn’t hand wring. He just did it.
Here you have a crystal clear example of why we say that the Democratic Party is not a vehicle for working class advance but is a crucial means by which the ruling class thwarts working class advance.
“Tax the rich until their pips squeak”
What’s the solution to the state of Illinois’s money problems? We have the answer from the words of an old British Labour Party politician, Dennis Healy. He is reported to have said, “We should tax the rich until their pips squeak” (There’s some dispute if he actually said this, and he certainly didn’t carry through on it!) But it’s exactly the way to maintain good public services and fight the Covid pandemic: tax the rich until their pips squeak.
Adam Shils
Adam Shils is a member of the International Socialism Project in Chicago.
