Photo by Supermac1961 | CC BY 2.0
The Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that non-union workers cannot be forced to pay agency/”fair share” fees to public sector unions. This may be devastating for teachers unions and other public-sector unions. In 2011 Wisconsin passed legislation doing away with agency fees for public sector unions, and membership in the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union, fell from nearly 100,000 to only 40,000 by 2015.
Teachers unions are the largest unions left in the US, and Janus is primarily aimed at us. Much of the motivation behind the backers funding the Janus case—and previous similar cases, such as Friedrichs in 2016—is because of our consistent support for and funding of the Democratic Party. But labor unions are not dictatorships. The leaders are elected, and the decisions made more or less reflect the desires of the membership. Those who oppose unions’ pro-Democratic Party politics, such as Janus, or the teachers in Friedrichs, are free to and should make that political fight within their unions. By contrast, Janus and Friedrichs are essentially saying that they should get to stick their co-workers with the cost of the union benefits they enjoy because they don’t agree with their fellow workers’ politics. Anti-union groups such as the Freedom Foundation have already sent mailings to teachers trying to seduce us away with the promise of saving money on our…