Students work on artworks at Chalmers Elementary school in Chicago, July 13, 2022.
Photo:
Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press
When Illinois passed Amendment 1 in November to enshrine collective bargaining in the state constitution, we expected aggressive union action. Well, that was fast. Last week Prairie State lawmakers passed a bill authorizing collective bargaining among Chicago principals and assistant principals.
Chicago principals hadn’t previously been able to unionize because they were considered management under state law. A 2017 pay raise brought the minimum salary for school principals to $125,000 a year, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. As of June 2022, principal salaries were commonly between $140,000 and $170,000, a salary at the top of the education pay scale.
That’s well above the average salary of principals statewide and it’s also more than most public-school teachers make. What happens if teachers’ collective-bargaining priorities conflict with those of newly organized principals? Potential strikes by principals are especially problematic because of their management role at schools, where administration and leadership are required for daily decisions. The fact of being an essential employee is one reason management isn’t typically unionized. With two layers of union interests now lined up at schools, children become an even smaller concern of the union-bureaucracy education complex, if that’s possible.
The legislation specifies that Chicago’s principals aren’t allowed to strike, but that conflicts with Amendment 1’s ban on any law that “interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively.” Illinois Policy Institute labor director
Mailee Smith
notes unions could argue the state is “unconstitutionally diminishing one of their tools of collective bargaining.”
The bill is headed to Gov.
J.B. Pritzker’s
desk and…
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