Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt of an article published in the American Bar Association’s “Human Rights” magazine. To access the full article, go here. Artz is AFSCME’s associate general counsel.
Janus v. AFSCME Council 31 turned five years old this past June. Happy birthday to the Supreme Court case that twisted the interpretation of the First Amendment away from the freedom of association principles that protect workers’ rights to join labor unions and instead toward an interpretation of freedom of speech that now prohibits public sector unions from charging fees to nonmembers for union representation provided.
A lot has happened in the five years since Justice Samuel Alito authored the decision, decided 5–4 along the frequent conservative/liberal split seen in important Supreme Court decisions. Two justices have retired. One has passed away. A president has been impeached, twice. Mark Janus, the named plaintiff in the case, and reflecting perhaps the two-faced Roman god who shares his name, left his job working for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services and took a position as a senior fellow at the Liberty Justice Center, a conservative anti-union organization that played an outsized role in bringing the case before the Supreme Court.
Some things have not changed. Bruce Rauner, former republican governor of Illinois who brought the original case, is still a billionaire. And public sector unions continue to survive and even grow. What did not happen was the predicted crippling of public sector unions, hoped for by those who celebrated the Janus decision. …
… The reason for the lack of severe membership losses in the wake of the Janus decision may be that unions prepared for and reacted to the decision in several proactive ways. AFSCME, for example, beginning after the Harris and Friedrichs decisions, implemented an internal organizing program called “AFSCME Strong,” which prioritized one-on-one communications, member-to-member engagement, new computer technology to aid organizing and sign-up, and more political engagement to pass laws allowing for better access to worksites and potential members. …
Meanwhile, the right-wing organization’s litigation strategy post-Janus has widely failed. Anti-union groups have filed close to 200 lawsuits in state and federal courts. To date, not a single court has ruled in their favor, although a handful are pending certiorari at the Supreme Court.
Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt of an article published in the American Bar Association’s “Human Rights” magazine. To access the full article, go here. Artz is AFSCME’s associate general counsel.