CHICAGO — As Chicagoans prepare to cast ballots in the presidential election, now just over a month away, workers for the city’s Board of Elections Commissioners want to unionize, saying they’re overworked and frustrated by “stagnant” wages that don’t keep up with the cost of living in the city.

But attorneys representing the Board of Elections have pushed back, arguing the election workers are prohibited from union membership because the state’s election code bars them from participating in “political activity.”

Board of Elections workers filed a petition for union recognition with the Service Employees International Union Local 73 in July, the union said. The local has proposed recognition of a union that would include between 80 and 90 elections workers including clerks, polling place investigators and equipment specialists, among other roles.

Last month, attorneys for the body responded in a legal filing urging the Illinois Labor Relations Board not to recognize the workers’ union, saying union membership would constitute “political activity” that elections workers are prohibited from taking part in by the election code.

“Membership and participation by Board employees in the Union clearly constitutes participation in the type of activity barred under the Election Code. The Union has, in part, an undeniable political purpose,” outside counsel for the Board of Elections wrote.

SEIU 73’s communication director, Eric Bailey, said the union was “dumbstruck” that the city had opposed the workers’ petition.

“They’re working to ensure the freedom to vote for the people of Chicago,” he said. “All we want is for their freedom to form a union to be upheld in the city of Chicago.”

Board of Elections spokesperson Max Bever said in an email he could not provide comment on the dispute, describing it as “pending litigation with outside counsel.” City spokesperson Ronnie Reese declined to comment on pending litigation.

In its August filing, the Board of Elections noted that SEIU 73 lobbies legislatively and makes endorsements and financial contributions to political candidates. In 2022, for instance, the local endorsed Brandon Johnson for his current role as Chicago mayor. The mayor received about $4.4 million in campaign contributions from SEIU affiliates during his campaign.

“Plainly, these ‘political matters’ are precisely the type of activity in which the Union and its members regularly and effectively engage,” the filing reads. Board workers “strictly cannot, under any circumstances” engage in those activities, the board argued.

The board’s counsel also argued that the proposed bargaining unit was invalid because it included some employees whose jobs should have been classified as exempt under the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act. Some of the workers should have been classified as ineligible for unionization because they were supervisors, short-term or otherwise exempt, the board argued.

The next step in the case will be a hearing before an administrative law judge, according to the state labor board’s executive director, Kimberly Stevens.

Bob Bruno, director of the labor studies program at the University of Illinois, described the board’s argument regarding political activity prohibitions as “spurious and very speculative.” He said it’s possible the argument could be overridden by the state’s Workers’ Rights Amendment voted into law two years ago.

Workers for the state Board of Elections are barred from collective bargaining by a more than decade-old state law passed during former Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration, according to Illinois State Board of Elections spokesperson Matt Dietrich. Dietrich said the reason state election workers specifically were excluded from unionizing was because they regulate the financial reporting for unions’ political action committees in Illinois.

Anders Lindall, a spokesperson for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, said the union had sought to represent state Board of Elections employees before they were among the state employees barred from collective bargaining.

The carve-out did not name all elections workers in the state, however; Bailey said SEIU 73 already represents about 60 workers at the Cook County Board of Elections.

City polling place investigator Odel Sterling III said that after more than 35 years working for the Chicago Board of Elections, he makes around $66,000 a year. Sterling’s job includes scouring the city for potential polling places, securing their use and surveying them to make sure they meet accessibility requirements.

On election days, he said, he’ll take charge when one of his polling places hasn’t opened on time or had another issue preventing voters from casting ballots.

Sterling said he had one small raise over the last year or two but that before that, he’d gone years without a raise at all.

“I would like to see those that have been here, that have done the work, to be properly compensated,” he told the Tribune.

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