In the first major union drive to reach the office in decades, a group of assistant state’s attorneys have asked the office to voluntarily recognize a bargaining unit that would represent hundreds of government lawyers working for the country’s second largest prosecutor’s office.
A majority of Cook County assistant state’s attorneys in the proposed bargaining unit have signed union authorization cards with Teamsters Local 700, according to a letter sent to State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke on Monday. Representatives declined to say what percentage of attorneys signed cards.
The prosecutors are motivated by a desire to improve wages and working conditions in a notoriously grueling job, union representatives said. They gave the state’s attorney’s office a deadline of noon Thursday to respond. The office did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday.
“Nobody takes that job to make money, but everyone who takes that job wants to do right by the victim. They want to keep the bad guys in jail,” said Laura Leahy, assistant general counsel for the Teamsters Local 700 and a former Cook County prosecutor. “Essentially they go to work every day and they spend hours and hours and hours in court and then they don’t have the staff that other (legal) offices have.”
An Illinois Supreme Court decision shut the door on the last major union attempt by county prosecutors in 1995, but labor leaders say the winds have changed with a new state’s attorney who pledged to not oppose a union drive, a recent constitutional amendment and new legislation on the table.
The effort marks a major test for O’Neill Burke, who was sworn in in December, as rank-and-file prosecutors seek fulfillment of a campaign promise the former appellate judge made to provide voluntary recognition to a union if a majority of staff demonstrate interest.
“I know firsthand the challenges that (assistant state’s attorneys) face on a daily basis. Union representation and the ability to bargain collectively with management are one of the most important tools to protect the rights of workers,” O’Neill Burke, then a candidate, wrote in a letter provided to the Tribune by the Teamsters. “It would be my honor to be a part of that historic process.”
The new top prosecutor has sought to put her stamp on policy and practice in an office tackling persistent gun violence, wrongful convictions and other challenges. In recent years, the office has also struggled with morale, which voluntary recognition could help mitigate as bargaining could pave the way for better pay and working conditions, labor representatives argued.
The 1995 high court decision does not preclude Burke from voluntarily recognizing a prosecutors union, the Teamsters said. And even if O’Neill Burke chooses not to, the state’s Workers Rights Amendment, which enshrines the right to collective bargaining in the state’s constitution, provides a legal foundation to counteract the 1995 decision, labor representatives said.
New legislation introduced in Springfield last week also would explicitly allow non-supervisory assistant state’s attorneys to unionize, the Teamsters said.
“Our intent and hope is that voluntary recognition, as was pledged previously, is granted,” said Pasquale Gianni, director of government affairs for Teamsters Joint Council 25, an umbrella organization for Teamsters locals in Illinois and northwest Indiana.
Still, Gianni said, the Teamsters believe they would prevail if they needed to fight the case in front of the state labor relations board or in the courts.
“When you’re to read the plain language of the amendment itself, it really does enshrine within our state constitution this fundamental right of public employees to form a union,” he said.
Cook County assistant state’s attorneys filed a union petition in 1993, but the Illinois Supreme Court later ruled that the prosecutors were “managerial employees” without the right to unionize.
Then-State’s Attorney Jack O’Malley, a Republican who served from 1990 to 1996, challenged the union drive by asking a Cook County judge to halt state and local labor relations boards from certifying the petition to unionize from the Prosecutors’ Bar Association of Cook County. The association sought to represent assistant state’s attorneys who were not supervisors.
A lower court dismissed the state’s attorney’s office’s challenge, but the Illinois Supreme Court mostly sided with the office, finding that rank-and-file prosecutors are in “essence surrogates for the State’s Attorney” when prosecuting cases and making decisions.
In a dissenting opinion though, two justices argued that the majority’s ruling was problematic.
“There may sometimes be problems of divided loyalty between the employer and the collective-bargaining unit if assistant State’s Attorneys are permitted to organize, but divided loyalty is an issue whenever labor organizes,” the dissent said. “If the prospect of divided loyalty were reason enough to take employees out of the Act, no public employee could ever invoke its protections.”
Cook County assistant public defenders have been unionized with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees since the mid-1980s.
Last week, state Rep. Kambium “Kam” Buckner introduced a bill the Teamsters said would amend the state’s labor relations act to include public sector attorneys such as assistant state’s attorneys. The Teamsters supported a similar bill first introduced in 2023, which stalled in Springfield despite passing through the House and Senate.
Even if Buckner’s bill is not signed into law, the Teamsters say they are confident the prosecutors could unionize under the state’s Workers Rights Amendment, which protects the “fundamental right to organize and to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing” for Illinois workers.
In her letter to Burke, Leahy said the Teamsters believe the constitutional amendment, which Illinoisans passed by referendum in 2022, “provides the legal foundation necessary to secure union recognition for the ASAs” because it would supersede the 1995 Supreme Court decision.
The Teamsters argued a union would provide stability to the state’s attorneys office and help with recruitment and retention, as the attorneys could attempt to bargain pay increases, build transparency around career growth opportunities and address punishing workloads, such as in the office’s Felony Review Unit which requires long shifts during the day and night to review potential criminal charges.
“We are rooting for [O’Neill Burke’s] success. We supported her,” Gianni said. “This is all about, obviously, the overwhelming desire of state’s attorneys to have dignity in the workplace, parity with colleagues that they work with in courtrooms on a daily basis, economic justice.”