In the months leading up to the Janus decision, labor unions predicted doom and gloom if the court ruled the way it eventually did. Valerie Strauss of The Washington Post reported, “There have been different predictions about how teachers’ unions would be affected if the court rules in favor of Janus. Some have argued that the membership of the two major teachers unions … could sharply decline. Others have said an assault on public sector unions could spark a new union movement that could swell membership, but union officials are already planning for the former.”[23]
After the Janus decision, public sector unions changed their tune and put forth a show of strength, repeatedly downplaying the effects the decision was having or might have. In July 2018, a few weeks after the court decision, The American Prospect quoted optimistic union leaders.[24]
For instance, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told the publication, “The membership numbers are higher than they have ever been, in places all over the country where we have been bombarded by the right wing and by their allies.” And Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, reportedly said, “Educators have the wind — and the public — at their back. This is a galvanizing moment for educators and our labor movement.”
In November 2018, POLITICO reported, “Teachers unions appear to have dodged a serious blow to their political activity and membership rolls following a sweeping Supreme Court ruling earlier this year. […] Nine union leaders in eight states … reported modest but anticipated drops in membership since the court decision, in addition to the loss of thousands of non-members who used to pay mandatory union fees.”[25] The article went on to note that unions in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Montana reported only small losses in membership.
In March 2019, The 74 Million reported that the AFT claimed it had added 88,500 new members in 2018, the year Janus was decided. This more than made up for the 84,600 agency fee payers who were no longer required to pay the union as a result of the decision.[26] In the same month, Lee Saunders, president of AFSCME said, “In overwhelming numbers, AFSCME members have blunted the attacks of the wealthy special interests and chosen to stick with their union.”[27]
In the years since, these claims have quieted down. The reason may be that the decision has had a prolonged and significant effect on union membership. As detailed earlier in this report, federal data from the three largest public sector unions show a collective drop of nearly 550,000 people financially supporting them, more than a 10% decline. The payroll records from public employers we requested — the most accurate information available — shows that 22.2% of people covered by union contracts decline membership. In these 450-plus public entities alone, nearly 730,00 people have opted out of union membership.
If the percent of people declining union membership is applied to the 5.6 million public employees working under union contracts across the 22 states affected by the Janus decision, we can project that 1.2 million people are declining to pay union dues, costing public sector labor unions about $720 million in revenue annually. Since the Janus decision in 2018, an increasing number of public employees are exercising their First Amendment right to opt out of union membership, and that trend is likely to continue.