The Policy Shop: The past, present and future of worker freedom

This edition of The Policy Shop is by Mailee Smith, staff attorney and senior director of labor policy.

On this fifth anniversary of U.S. Supreme Court justices issuing their ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, we’re witnessing a radical transformation in the labor movement and of government unions across America.

The Supreme Court’s ruling. In their decision, justices acknowledged forced government union fees are unconstitutional. They affirmed what many people have known for years: public unions are inherently political. Making people pay dues to these unions is the same as compelling them to support a political agenda.

Because of that reality, the court ruled workers could not be forced to pay union dues as a condition to keep their government jobs.

By ending forced union fees, the Janus decision provided a critical avenue for public employees to separate themselves from views they did not share.

After Janus, many workers left government unions. Public-sector union membership in Illinois has fallen by at least 8.5% since 2017, with at least 36,418 fewer government workers financially supporting government unions. Each major government union in Illinois, except SEIU HCII, has seen a decline in members and fee payers. Even SEIU HCII’s own documents, despite boasting it negotiates for 91,000 workers, reveal at least one-third of those workers have chosen not to be union members.

But SEIU HCII members are in four states. Take them out of the picture and the overall public sector union membership in Illinois has decreased by over 10%.

The same is true for all government unions. The Illinois Education Association and Illinois Federation of Teachers have lost a combined 9.4% of their members or fee payers.

More than 12,000 state and local government workers across Illinois have chosen not to join or pay fees to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 since the U.S. Supreme Court restored their ability to choose in 2018 in Janus v. AFSCME. Mark Janus himself is a former AFSCME Council 31 member.

And it’s not just Illinois. AFSCME’s national affiliate has seen nearly 172,000 workers choose not to affiliate with the union since 2017. That represents a drop of 12% nationwide.

In 2022, less than 21% of AFSCME Council 31’s spending was on representing workers, according to its report with the U.S. Department of Labor. The rest was on politics, administration and other union leadership priorities. Turns out, workers don’t like that.

How government unions have responded. Government unions, instead of adapting to meet members’ needs, have intensified their politicking – and made bold power grabs.

Declining ranks have forced unions to find backdoor methods to preserve power. In November 2022, Illinois voters barely passed a new amendment that grants government unions power and authority that trumps state law, all under the oversimplified guise of “protecting collective bargaining as a fundamental right.” This amendment expanded bargaining to encompass broad, ill-defined terms such as “economic welfare” and “safety at work.”

California, Pennsylvania follow suit. Illinois was just the testing ground for a measure as extreme as Amendment 1. Now, the California State Assembly is considering a labor amendment worded similarly to Illinois’ Amendment 1.

It’s not the first. Unions in Pennsylvania are pushing an amendment worded exactly like Illinois’ Amendment 1.

If passed by both chambers, the California amendment would appear on the ballot in the 2024 general election. The Pennsylvania amendment would be on the ballot in the 2025 primary if adopted by the legislature in two consecutive sessions.

Voters in both states will likely be bombarded with false messages from unions trying to trick them into thinking the amendment will protect workers. But as in Illinois, collective bargaining in both California and Pennsylvania already is protected by federal and statelaws. The amendments are not necessary. But they do have great potential to push up taxes.

Teachers’ union takes Chicago. And, of course, in the wake of Janus, the Chicago Teachers Union did what most people thought was impossible – they put one of their own in the mayor’s office.

Thanks to spending $2.3 million to prop up their candidate’s campaign, CTU and its teachers union allies helped elect Brandon Johnson, a longtime CTU activist. Johnson won by an incredibly narrow margin: 51.4% to 48.6%. Some CTU members didn’t like the way union bosses handled campaign finances and ended up filing an unfair labor practice complaint against the union after it failed to give members the chance to vote on dues transfers to Johnson’s campaign.

What’s next? The landscape of government unions has fundamentally shifted since Janus v. AFSCME when justices ruled unions are inherently political. Membership is down as workers exercise their right not to associate with organizations they feel do not represent their interests. Rather than respecting workers’ choices and recalibrating away from politics, unions have become more political than ever, resorting to raising dues and seeking legislative and constitutional changes. Public sector unions’ desperate search for influence demonstrates they’re dedicated to using their political power to push their agendas, even at the expense of their remaining members’ interests. The Janus ruling did not end the influence of unions, but it did push them deeper into social militancy and away from working for workers.

To learn more about how government workers can opt out of the union in their workplace, visit https://leavemyunion.com/