So far, those that want to force workers into paying dues in order to work have not lost many members in California. LAUSD teachers union lost just 36 members out of 34,000. And if their strike is successful—and it will be—there will be 2-3,000 more teachers—even though the district will go bankrupt.
“AFSCME, AFT, SEIU, NEA and CWA tell In These Times that months, if not years, of preparing for Janus helped them dodge the bullet. CWA and AFSCME began member engagement campaigns in 2015 in anticipation of the Supreme Court banning public-sector fair-share fees through another case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association (only to have the death of Justice Antonin Scalia grant a reprieve). Through a program called AFSCME Strong, AFSCME prioritized personal conversations as a strategy to strengthen the union. Nearly 200,000 fair-share fee-payers joined as full members before Janus came down. AFSCME’s ratio of optins to opt-outs stands at 5 to 1.
NEA prepared for Janus by shifting from a “servicing culture” to an “organizing culture,” says Tom Israel, NEA director of state affiliate growth. The union trained staff and leaders in organizing, launched a New Ed Campaign to engage new hires and reached out to fair-share fee-payers. “Thousands of fee-payers thought they were actually full members and happily converted,” Israel says.
No one tells them their dues money is being spent to raise their taxes, take away Constitutional rights, make housing and living more expensive and take away personal freedoms—including honest elections. No one mentions the dues pay for the creation of a totalitarian State.
Disaster Averted: How Unions Have Dodged the Blow of Janus (So Far)
Public-sector unions defied the Right’s attempt to crush them—and were transformed in the process.
BY Heather Gies, In Fast Times, 1/10/19
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Janus could also spark a labor surge. “It might generate a higher level of union activism. If that happens, what they’ve intended to do here may backfire.”
Months after the Supreme Court’s June 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision, public-sector unions are not teetering on the brink of collapse, as their detractors may have hoped. The consensus is that good preparation softened the initial blow.
“Anyone writing our obituary is going to be sorely disappointed,” Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), tells In These Times. “We don’t believe we are going to get hurt nearly as badly as people thought by Janus.”
U.S. labor law requires unions to represent everyone in a bargaining unit whether or not they opt to be official, dues-paying union members. Prior to Janus, most states required those who opted out to pay for that representation through “fair-share fees,” set at a percentage of dues. In one fell swoop, Janus eliminated fair-share fees for public-sector unions nationwide, allowing nonmembers to get all the benefits of the union without paying.
In These Times spoke with five U.S. public-sector unions affected by Janus: AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the National Education Association (NEA) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA). Before Janus, workers who only paid their fair share and did not choose to be members made up 3 percent to 9 percent of the people represented by these unions. With the ruling, revenue from public-sector fair-share fees vanished.
But Janus also poses another, deeper threat. Current dues-paying members may decide—with an assist from rightwing “opt-out” campaigns—to leave the union, knowing they can get the benefits for free.
Public-sector unions have been hard at work to re-engage members and convince them not to opt out. These initial efforts have been successful, with far lower opt-out rates than feared, some below 1 percent. The unions are benefiting from a favorable climate: Approval of labor unions is at a 15-year high, and a majority of Americans view unions positively. “I’d like to think this is backfiring on all the corporate anti-union forces that cooked this up,” says CWA Secretary-Treasurer Sara Steffens.
For now, public-sector unions’ membership rates appear to be holding steady or even growing (although most unions decline to give hard figures, saying they are still collecting data from locals). Opt-ins—the conversions of fair-share fee-payers into members—have outpaced opt-outs by as much as 5 to 1. Newly unionized workplaces have also helped offset losses.
The existential threat to membership, however, is far from over. As workforces turn over, new hires may not understand why they should join the union. “It might be a slow erosion over time,” says Chris Brooks, writer and organizer at Labor Notes. “It’s probably too early to tell how deep the impacts are going to be.”
With an eye to the long game, In These Times spoke to national and local union leaders and rank-and-file members about how they are adapting to a post-Janus world.
AFSCME, AFT, SEIU, NEA and CWA tell In These Times that months, if not years, of preparing for Janus helped them dodge the bullet. CWA and AFSCME began member engagement campaigns in 2015 in anticipation of the Supreme Court banning public-sector fair-share fees through another case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association (only to have the death of Justice Antonin Scalia grant a reprieve). Through a program called AFSCME Strong, AFSCME prioritized personal conversations as a strategy to strengthen the union. Nearly 200,000 fair-share fee-payers joined as full members before Janus came down. AFSCME’s ratio of optins to opt-outs stands at 5 to 1.
NEA prepared for Janus by shifting from a “servicing culture” to an “organizing culture,” says Tom Israel, NEA director of state affiliate growth. The union trained staff and leaders in organizing, launched a New Ed Campaign to engage new hires and reached out to fair-share fee-payers. “Thousands of fee-payers thought they were actually full members and happily converted,” Israel says.
AFT, too, has been working to cultivate trust and a sense of belonging through one-on-one conversations. AFT President Randi Weingarten estimates that less than 1 percent of members have opted out. About a third of existing members have recommitted their membership—meaning they aren’t considering abandoning the union—and a number of locals are sitting at 100 percent membership, including Vanlue, Ohio; Yonkers, N.Y.; Springfield, Mass.; Scranton, Pa.; and more than 150 locals each in Minnesota and Illinois.
Membership in the United Federation of Teachers, which represents most of New York City’s public-school teachers, is at 99.3 percent. United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) has converted more than 1,200 of its 3,000 fee-payers into full members.
“We’ve made a strategic decision to intentionally and deliberately go out and talk to members,” says Georgia Flowers-Lee, a preschool special education teacher and a member of UTLA’s board of directors. In those conversations, local leaders emphasized that the union is “not just an insurance policy” against hostile actions by bosses, but a “tool for collective action,” says UTLA Field and Organizing Director Brian McNamara.
Only 56 of UTLA’s 34,000 members have dropped their membership as a result of Janus, while the number of individuals who voluntarily contribute to UTLA’s Political Action Council of Educators (PACE) fund for political advocacy has increased 62 percent. Members have also voted over the past few years to increase union dues to put the union on stronger financial footing.
For UTLA, resisting Janus is closely tied to the union’s broader fight to protect public education and secure a better learning environment. “The organizing of educators through the union is one of the only obstacles to privatizers’ efforts to take over our public schools,” says McNamara. “Janus is about undermining and attempting to bankrupt our union so that we’re not there to lead the social justice fight for public schools.” The union voted 98 percent in August 2018 to authorize a strike, set for January 10 as this issue went to press.
UTLA is following in the footsteps of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), which went on strike to fight cuts in 2012 after a reform caucus was voted into power. Its strategy of mass action and community engagement around public education fostered an esprit de corps that, along with internal member engagement, helped stave off Janus dropouts. Only 20 out of more than 25,000 CTU members have opted out. “The political initiative to weaken labor has been met with defiance within our ranks,” says CTU President Jesse Sharkey.
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