Great news for workers looking to unionize in Illinois.
“Illinois has become the latest state to adopt legislation aimed at protecting workers from their employers’ anti-union messaging.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, signed the bill into law on Wednesday, joining a wave of other states that have enacted similar laws over the past couple years as union organizing has surged.
The Illinois Worker Freedom of Speech Act, which takes effect January 1, prohibits employers from holding mandatory meetings to discuss company views on religion or politics, and specifically unions.
Such meetings, known as captive audience meetings, are widely used by companies to convince workers that they’d be better off without a union.
In recent months and years, pro-union workers at Starbucks stores, Amazon warehouses, and a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama have described being herded into meetings, sometimes one-on-one, with managers and outside consultants, barraged with text messages, and forced to watch anti-union videos, day after day.
For companies who believe their employees would be ill-served by unions, these meetings have proven effective in dampening worker enthusiasm for organizing campaigns, in some cases even defeating them.”
For the rest of the story, visit NPR here.