Today, everyone in public education, in fact everyone working in public service, is angry. Last night, literally in the dark of night, the Illinois State Legislature decimated pensions for future public employees – for teachers, ESPs, university employees, public works personnel, child care workers, social workers – for more than 70 percent of those working in public employment.
Citizens of all walks of life think this is good. But as it diminishes our competitiveness for recruiting quality workers, these citizens could see the quality of services, from education to garbage pickup, go down. Then they, too, will be angry.
Tradition has it that we vent our anger by setting up a circular firing squad and shoot at each other. Meanwhile, the bipartisan business powers of this state continue to rake in the dough. There has got to be a better way.
In its attempt to educate our members, this blog and project, have consistently pointed toward a better path. That path is a united demand for fair taxation which can fix the state’s structural deficit and provide for fair and sustainable funding of education, human and public services for the citizens of Illinois.
In short, now is the time to demand passage of House Bill 174. HB 174 is the bill that increases personal and corporate income tax to a level comparable with other states, expands the sales tax to 39 consumer services and reduces the dependency on local real estate taxes to fund vital local services. It is also the first step toward moving us from regressive taxation to progressive taxation.
Some will respond asking why we don’t just support the Governor’s proposed 1 percent tax increase for education. The answer is simple – it is just a band aid. As long as we fail to fix our state’s financial problems, we will battle year in and year out over the same issues. As long as we fail to fix our state’s revenue shortfalls and end our dependency on real estate taxes, we will see RIFs instead of quality public education for every student. And if we just push for money for education, we can expect the same old shell game to continue, using us as the excuse to raise taxes only to spread the funds across the state’s other budget needs.
But most importantly, demanding to fix the state’s financial problems maintains unity with other state and local employees. Only by staying united will we succeed in bringing real and lasting change to this state.
Of course, UNITY is what is central to the idea of unions. Teachers, ESPs, university employees, public works personnel, child care workers, social workers and others are all our union brothers and sisters. As was first stated more than 100 years ago by the Haymarket martyrs who were fighting the same powers here in Illinois:
“An injury to one, is an injury to all.”
Unity for real change is how we can create a strategic response to channel our anger from yesterday.