County prosecutors' union bid should get tossed out, judge finds

Chicago Tribune

08-08-2025

A decades-old Illinois Supreme Court decision bars Cook County prosecutors from unionizing, an administrative law judge for the state's labor board found Wednesday.
A bid from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 700 to represent nearly 700 assistant state's attorneys should therefore get tossed out, the judge, Michelle N. Owen, found. 'The petition is clearly inappropriate,' she wrote.
Earlier this year, county prosecutors launched the first major union drive the office had seen in decades, saying they were seeking parity with Cook County public defenders, who have been unionized since the 1980s.
The Teamsters said they believed the legal winds had changed since the 1995 state Supreme Court decision that found prosecutors were 'managerial' employees barred from union membership. The union argued the state's Workers' Rights Amendment, which since 2022 has enshrined the 'fundamental right' to collective bargaining in the Illinois Constitution, should pave the way for a prosecutors' union.
But in her order, Owen found that the labor board lacked jurisdiction to determine whether state law should be preempted by the relatively new constitutional amendment.
Matt McGrath, a spokesperson for the state's attorney's office, said the office was 'pleased' with the order.
'Our position all along has been that this is a well-established legal matter that requires a legislative solution, and the (labor board) agreed,' McGrath said in a statement. 'State's Attorney (Eileen O'Neill) Burke supports organized labor and the right of workers to collectively bargain, but as the county's chief law enforcement official and former judge, she will always follow the law first and foremost.'
The labor board judge also wrote that the Teamsters had failed to demonstrate that a majority of the prosecutors had signed union cards, though the union had previously claimed to have secured support from a majority of the ASAs. Pasquale Gianni, director of government affairs for the Illinois Teamsters, said the union still believed it had filed its petition with more than 51% support and that it was not sure how the labor board had reached that determination.
The union can appeal the order. Gianni declined to say definitively whether or not the Teamsters would do so, but said in a statement the union was 'charting our new direction forward.'
'Obviously, we are disappointed with the decision, which amounts to the disenfranchisement of working people who wish to be represented by a union. It is our intention to leave no stone unturned to achieve that end,' he said.
The union has soured on its relationship with O'Neill Burke, whom Local 700 endorsed, since she took office.
While she was on the campaign trail, the Teamsters have said, the union secured a promise from O'Neill Burke that, if elected, she would recognize a prosecutors' union if a majority of her staff wanted one.
Before filing a petition for union representation earlier this year, the Teamsters asked for that voluntary recognition. O'Neill Burke didn't provide it, after which the union filed a petition with the state labor board.
The Teamsters — including the union's general president, Sean O'Brien, who at a May rally in Chicago said the union had gathered to give O'Neill Burke 'a dose of truth-cillin' — have accused the state's attorney of reneging on a promise.
O'Neill Burke's office has maintained throughout the union push that she supports the right of ASA's to unionize 'once Illinois law allows for it.'