Issue Position: Fighting for Working Families

Issue Position

Fighting for Working Families

Dan Hynes has been a strong and consistent advocate for the working men and women of Illinois. Dan has led by personal example and legislative initiative to ensure that the state encourages a positive environment for both the labor and business communities. As a result of his efforts, Dan has been widely recognized for bringing a common sense approach to labor issues and for being a progressive leader by creating worker protections. If elected Governor, Dan will continue his unending efforts to ensure that working families in Illinois are heard and actively represented.

As Comptroller, Dan took on the friction and distrust between union members within his office and the previous administration. After skillful negotiation, Dan was able to create a renewed trust among all parties involved; resulting in benefits for his employees, increased efficiencies within the office and an open door policy for future negotiations. Dan also greatly expanded family leave guidelines in the Comptroller's office (which included extending benefits to employees engaged in domestic partnerships) to give workers more flexibility to take care of their family needs. In order to ensure that the court reporters working under the umbrella of the Comptroller's office were fairly represented during contract negotiations, Dan encouraged them to organize, for the first time, with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He also encouraged IT professionals in his office to form a bargaining unit, which they did with the International Union of Operating Engineers.

Dan also stepped outside the traditional role of Comptroller to ensure that state contractors are paying fair wages by signing an Executive Order to freeze state payments to state contractors suspected of violating the Prevailing Wage Act. In order to enforce his Executive Order, Dan also created a Prevailing Wage Enforcement Officer to streamline complaints and pursue violations. Additionally, all grant agreements and contracts for public works enacted by the state are now pre-audited by the Comptroller's office to ensure that they contain a Prevailing Wage Act clause. Dan also initiated a searchable database of state-funded construction projects listed by county, allowing citizens to examine contracts and verify that prevailing wages are being paid.

In addition to fostering solid labor relations and cracking down on state contractors who fail to pay a prevailing wage, Dan has also been the champion of legislation that protects working families. Specifically, Dan led the charge, with then-State Senator Barack Obama, to protect overtime pay for thousands of Illinois workers. The legislation decoupled Illinois from disastrous Bush administration rules that would have eliminated overtime pay for those who provide critical services in Illinois. Under those rules, an estimated 375,000 employees (including nurses, EMTs, lab techs, military veterans, and police and fire personnel) could have been denied overtime protections. Additionally, Dan worked with organized labor to change state laws to allow unionized construction workers hired temporarily by state agencies to receive credits for that work with their union health and pension plans. Further, Dan worked with labor organizations across the state and effectively lobbied for passage of the Employee Classification Act of 2007. Under the new law, employers are no longer allowed to misclassify their full-time employees as independent contractors. This prevented employers from not paying taxes, fair wages and benefits to workers. This also eliminated any unfair and illegal bidding advantage that contractors involved in misclassifying employees had over other contractors that were properly classifying their employees.

Dan Hynes has a long track record of standing with the working men and women of Illinois. If elected, Dan will effectively use the bully pulpit of the Governor's office to advance the cause of working people in Illinois. He will maintain an open door to the labor community and will continue to do whatever it takes to ensure that Illinois' workers have a forceful and vocal advocate working on their behalf.

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