BY LEO WELCH
Leo Welch is the Vice President of the Illinois AAUP.
The anti-union right-wing Republicans finally got a U.S. Supreme Court decision that they predicted would destroy unions once and for all. The Janus decision was preceded by two other attempts which included Abood v. Detroit Board of Education which held that union unit members could be charged a “fair share” of union membership dues. The “share” of non-member pay is the amount the union spends in generating and defending the contract, and defending the rights of unit members. A non-member does not contribute to any type of political action by the union. They do receive all of the salary and benefits of the union contract. They may file a grievance and are eligible for other job related support by the union.
In 2016 the U.S. Supreme Court heard Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. The Association is affiliated with the National Education Association. The case centered on whether Abood v. Detroit Board of Education should be overruled. The main argument against “fair share” and public sector “union shops” was that it violated First Amendment rights. In other words, anti-union employees were surrendering their free speech rights.
After the case was argued in front of the Supreme Court and before a decision was made, Justice Antonin Scalia died, leaving only eight members of the court remained. The final vote was four to four so the Abood decision remained in place.
On June 27, 2018 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Janus v. AFSCME case that public sector unions can no longer collect “agency fees” or “fair share” which were mandatory in 22 states, including Illinois. All 48 community colleges have collective bargaining units for tenure-track faculty and all but two public universities have collective bargaining units for tenure-track faculty. The exceptions are Illinois State University and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There are also significant numbers of adjunct faculty and staff unions in all of Illinois public higher education.
After the Janus decision there were dire predictions regarding the future of unions especially in the educational sector.
Terry Moe, a Stanford political science professor who is opposed to unions said, “This will weaken teacher unions as a political force.” Moe, like most conservatives, dislikes unions because they tend to support Democratic candidates running for office at all levels.
This of course is one of the reasons right-to-work states tend to be Republican-dominated states.
The predictions that the Janus decision would decimate unions is not happening in some states where educational budget cuts have been severe and union membership has increased. In states such as Arizona, North Carolina, Oklahoma and West Virginia, union membership has increased by hundreds or thousands.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, is optimistic. Of the 800,000 AFT members in 18 states affected by the Janus decision, the AFT said it had secured more than 500,000 members that “recommitted” to retain union membership. Approximately 90 percent of the AFT members are educators. Illinois has a membership total of about 110,000 members in K-12 and higher education. Republic Governor Bruce Rauner was an extreme opponent of unions and facilitated the Janus case. He is now replaced by a Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker who is very pro-union and should completely overturn the Rauner agenda.
The American Association of University Professors had their own problem with the 1980 decision NLRB v. Yeshiva University. The decision labeled most tenure track faculty in the private colleges and Universities as “managerial” which eliminated their right to be represented by a union or to organize a union.
Although this decision removed full-time tenure faculty from union ranks adjunct faculty, graduate students and other “professionals” are eligible for union representation.
It remains to be seen how much of an impact the Janus decision has on AAUP union membership.
Among public-sector unions affected by Janus were AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the National Education Association (NEA), the Communication Workers of America (CWA), and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
Prior to Janus, union unit members had about 3-9 percent who paid “fair-share” dues. Now current dues paying members are being contacted by right-wing groups to “opt-out” of the unions telling them they can still get negotiated salary and benefits from the union. They have become “free riders.”
Hard data is difficulty to come by, but most unions agree that the Janus decisions had not decimated their ranks. In fact, many indicated that their membership has increased due to personal contact with members. The unions have shifted from a role as a “service functions” to a “recruiting function” and it is paying off.
More detailed information will be available after The National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions has their conference. The conference will be at Hunter College of the City University of New York, April 7-9, 2019. The conference theme is “Collective Bargaining after Janus.”
