Editor’s Note: Here are excerpts from a USA TODAY column written by President Lee Saunders. To read the entire column, click here.
Teachers, sanitation workers, emergency medical technicians and corrections officers: They provide professional public services every day that keep their communities safe and strong. But with its decision in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, the Supreme Court has rolled back their freedom to negotiate a fair return on their work by standing together in a strong union. …
But we are unfazed by these attacks. We are too busy building power. At AFSCME over the past few years, we have held nearly 900,000 one-on-one conversations with members about the importance of recommitting to their union. Nearly 18,000 public service workers have joined AFSCME through new organizing drives. …
The court’s decision in Janus cannot stop this momentum. If anything, it will accelerate it, triggering a backlash that further emboldens union members to stick together — in a way sure to make a difference in November’s elections. The labor movement is bigger than one Supreme Court decision.