In eight months, Chicago will host the 2024 Democratic National Convention, where delegates will nominate for re-election the most union-friendly U.S. president in recent memory. President Biden’s support for union workers is laudable when applied to the private sector where profits and the bottom line are the raison d’etre. Collective bargaining agreements ensure employers don’t mistreat workers in their quest for cash.
The picture changes, however, when public sector unions are taken into account. Public organizations — schools, police departments, post offices, and so on — exist to serve taxpayers and their families, not to build investors’ wealth. That mission doesn’t always neatly dovetail with unions’ eternal goal of increasing membership, and subsequently, the union dues that flow into their coffers.
When it comes to public sector unions, none are as powerful as the two national teachers unions and their local affiliates. Just four public unions together spent almost $709 million on politics in the 2021–2022 election cycle. One was the National Education Association (NEA); another was the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Combined, the NEA and the AFT spend more money for the sake of political power in Illinois than any other state.
A just-released study just released by the Commonwealth Foundation found that public sector unions spent almost $30 million in Illinois’ 2021–2022 election cycle. Larger and more populous California trailed Illinois in second place; no other state even comes close.
