By Daniel DiSalvo <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Feb. 13, 2019 6:29 p.m. ET <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whatever happened to public-sector\nunions? Justice Elena Kagan warned of \u201clarge scale\nconsequences . . . involving millions of employees\u201d in her\ndissent last year from the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in Janus v. Afscme.<\/em>\nYet according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unions in state and local\ngovernment only lost 54,000 members, falling from 6.244 million to 6.19 million\nin 2018\u2014a decline of less than 1%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So much for Justice Kagan\u2019s claim\nthat unions couldn\u2019t survive as effective bargaining partners without\ncollecting mandatory \u201cagency fees\u201d from employees who declined to join. The\nreality is that public unions in the 22 states affected by Janus <\/em>started\nfrom positions of strength. State and local government unionization rates have\nbeen between<\/a> 33% and 38% since the early 1980s. To\nremain influential, all public unions need to do is retain their existing\nmembers and do a decent job recruiting new hires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019s only part of the story.\nState governments from New York to California have given public unions a big\nleg up since Janus<\/em>. Even before the court\u2019s 5-4 ruling against Afscme,\neight of the 22 affected states passed laws to shield unions from the full\nimpact of the court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The states with the largest public\nunions led the charge. In New York, where nearly 70%<\/a>\nof public employees are covered by union contracts, Gov. Andrew Cuomo began\nwith an executive order to prevent public entities from sharing their\nemployees\u2019 contact information with groups seeking to inform public workers of\ntheir newly recognized rights under Janus<\/em>. The governor framed his order\nas protecting workers from \u201charassment and intimidation,\u201d but it really guarded\nunion funds. At the time, the Freedom Foundation and other conservative\nnonprofits had already launched campaigns in other states to explain to workers\nhow they could now opt out of filling union coffers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Strong public-union states have also\npassed new laws to help labor leaders organize and recruit new members. Laws in\nNew York and California now give unions access to employees\u2019 contact\ninformation. They also require new hires to meet with union representatives for\nup to an hour so they can pitch membership. Similar laws have also been passed\nin New Jersey, Maryland and Washington. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of these states also prohibit\ngovernment employers from discouraging workers from joining unions. California\nlaw now states that a public employer \u201cshall not deter or discourage public\nemployees from becoming or remaining members of an employee organization.\u201d Such\nlanguage may imply that government employers can\u2019t even tell workers how to opt\nout of union membership. New Jersey requires public employers to reimburse\nunions for lost dues if they are found to have violated a similar provision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These measures encourage union\ncommunication with public employees, but make it less likely that workers will\nhear about their rights under the law\u2014or other outside perspectives on the\nmerits of public-union membership. Other measures stipulate that workers can\nonly revoke their union membership during specific times each year. These\n\u201cwindows,\u201d sometimes as short as 10 business days, are often tied to the date a\nperson was hired or signed a union card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, to push workers toward\njoining or remaining in unions, some of the new laws limit union services to\nmembers only. For example, Rhode Island allows police unions to stop\nrepresenting nonmembers in grievance cases. New York State United Teachers has\nused new state legislation to strip all nonunion members, whom they still\nrepresent in labor negotiations, of life insurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All these pro-union changes have\nsparked multiple lawsuits. Nonunion employees seeking to recover the agency\nfees collected from their paychecks before the court\u2019s decision have also filed\nlawsuits in nearly all federal district courts. If these retroactive-refund\nsuits are successful, they could cost public unions an estimated $150 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Public workers in Maine, Ohio and\nMinnesota are challenging a union\u2019s power to be the exclusive bargaining\nrepresentative. Petitioners in one case have already appealed to the U.S.\nSupreme Court. If they win, individual employees or groups of employees would\nbe allowed to negotiate directly with management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the unions lose these legal\nbattles or find their treasuries depleted, don\u2019t be surprised if some state\nlegislators embrace Harvard Law professor Benjamin Sachs\u2019 idea to fund public\nunions directly with tax dollars. The Hawaii Senate is already considering such\na bill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As the Journal has reported<\/a>,\nwith less money, unions have scaled back wasteful spending and are learning to\n\u201ccompete and operate\u201d without squeezing agency fees out of nonmembers. While Janus\n<\/em>may weaken public unions in the long run, they are poised to remain\nimportant political players\u2014with help from their friends in state government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. DiSalvo is a senior fellow at\nthe Manhattan Institute, associate professor of political science at the City\nCollege of New York-CUNY and author of the new report, \u201cPublic Sector Unions after Janus<\/a>.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n