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Something funny happened on the way to the labor movement’s funeral.
When Justice Samuel Alito and his anti-labor colleagues on the Supreme Court handed down the Janus v. AFSCME decision in June, unions braced for the worst. The American Federation of Teachers expected it might lose 30 percent of its revenue after the court gave public-sector workers the right to be free riders, benefiting from union representation but paying nothing.
Instead, the 1.7 million-member union added 88,500 members since Janus — more than offsetting the 84,000 “agency fee payers” it lost because of the Supreme Court ruling. And the union has had a burst of energy.
“Alito put his thumb on the scales of justice for the anti-union ideologues,” says Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “It was a wake-up call to everyone. Everybody got engaged.”
Labor leaders ought to thank Alito — and send chocolates to the Koch brothers for bankrolling the anti-union court case. Their brazen assault, combined with President Trump’s hostility toward labor, has generated a backlash, invigorating public-sector unions and making a case for the broader labor movement to return to its roots and embrace a more militant style.
Unions had become ossified, serving as member-service organizations that offered workplace representation and collective-bargaining assistance but not much fire. Now, the existential threat posed by Janus has spurred a renewal of activism.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees reports that 310,000 former agency fee payers have converted to full membership since 2014. Rank-and-file members, meanwhile, perceiving the threat to the union, have become more aggressive in recruitment.
The result: Instead of a feared 30 percent drop in membership, public-sector unions held their own in 2018, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week. There was a total decline of 0.7 percent.
Labor is still a long way from healthy, and more legal threats could blunt the renewed momentum. Lawsuits attempting to force unions to refund agency fee payers retroactively could be ruinous. But the renewed energy following Janus points the way forward for labor: Success is to be found not in reinvention but in returning to its combative origins.
“The Koch brothers and their team … expected us to hide under the bed,” Lily Eskelen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, tells me. Instead, “we stood up on soapboxes and stages and painted picket signs.”
The NEA had projected a loss of as many as 200,000 members, based on previous drop-membership campaigns. Instead, the 3 million-member union is actually up 13,935 members year over year.
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