Mark Janus, plaintiff in the Supreme Court case Janus v. American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, which said it was unconstitutional to force public sector employees to pay union fees, is no longer a public sector worker himself. Janus is quitting his job with the Illinois Department of Public Health in order to become a spokesman for the Illinois Policy Institute, the nonprofit group that championed his case.
The news is an ironic coda to last month’s Janus ruling. The court decision upended a four-decade Supreme Court precedent and is expected to become a major financial drain for the labor movement as public sector workers use their newly-acquired right to opt out of paying union dues. But Mark Janus will not be among those workers.
“We are thrilled that Mark has decided to bring his invaluable insight to our team after a long, hard fight at the Supreme Court. He is articulate, courageous and committed to the cause of empowering workers. He will be touring the country to make sure workers understand their rights and to share with workers and other people interested in his Supreme Court case what the Janus win means,” said John Tillman, the institute’s CEO in a statement.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the Liberty Justice Center, both of which have long defended workers who oppose their unions, represented Janus before the Supreme Court. The Liberty Justice Center is the legal affiliate of the Illinois Policy Institute.
Janus, a soft-spoken record-keeper for the state health department, sued his workplace’s union, AFSCME Council 31, over a $50 “fair share” fee it was automatically deducting from his paycheck every month, even though he never joined the union. Janus argued that the fee, required as part of the union’s collective bargaining contract with the state, violated his First Amendment rights. A five-justice majority agreed, sweeping away a 1977 precedent called Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.
“It’s not about the money for me,” Janus told the Washington Examiner in a February Interview. “It’s about my rights. My right to say ‘no’ is at least as important as my right to say ‘yes.’”
The seemingly minor financial dispute has profound implications for the labor movement, which relies on the funds that the fees provide. The National Education Association announced it was cutting its budget by $28 million in anticipation of lost revenue, and the Service Employees International Union cut its budget by 30 percent in anticipation of the decision. An internal survey by AFSCME, which has 1.6 million members, found that as few as one-third of them could be counted on to pay dues voluntarily, according to a 2015 Bloomberg report. Another half were on the fence, with 15 percent certain to opt out of paying dues entirely.
AFSCME Council 31 told the Chicago Sun-Times that Janus’ departure from the public sector proved the case was a pretext to attack organized labor. “Once again it’s clear that this court case was never about Mark Janus, but about billionaires like Bruce Rauner and big-money corporate funders launching a political attack on the freedom of working people to speak up together through a strong union,” AFSCME Council 31 spokesman Anders Lindall said.
