Government unions are making a play to sway the U.S. Supreme Court in one of its biggest cases of the year, and they’re using public school children as their pawns.
This week, hundreds of Kentucky teachers walked off the job and to the state Capitol, protesting against proposed changes intended to shore up to the state’s woefully underfunded public pension system. Before them, educators across West Virginia went on strike, keeping kids home for nearly two weeks until Governor Jim Justice agreed to a 5 percent pay raise for all government workers.
In the coming weeks, it’s rumored similar disruptions are being planned in other right-to-work states. This sudden upheaval raises questions about the true motive behind the disputes, coming as it is in states where government unions traditionally are not as hostile as their counterparts in non-right-to-work states like Illinois.
This labor unrest coincides with February’s oral arguments in the landmark Supreme Court case Janus v. AFSCME. A ruling could come anytime between now and when the court recesses in June. If the justices side with plaintiff Mark Janus, government employees across the country could get the right to work — or rather, unions could not get public employees fired for not paying them.
One of the central arguments made by AFSCME attorney David Frederick was that “labor peace” would be broken and strikes would ensue if the court rules in favor of public employees and against unions. Essentially, forcing workers to financially support unions is the price our country must pay to keep our children in school and for “labor peace.”
Frederick argues that agency fees, the amount a worker is forced to pay a union in a non-right-to-work state if they don’t want to be a member “is a limitation on striking. The fees are the tradeoff. Union security is the tradeoff for no strikes. And so if you were to overrule [the ability of unions to force public employees to pay them], you can raise an untold specter of labor unrest throughout the country.”
In light of the West Virginia strike, a planned Day of Action in Arizona and a threatened walk-out in Oklahoma, one must wonder if Frederick was right or if there’s something more strategic to the government unions’ sudden unrest.
Aside from the timing, the uptick in strikes is suspect because so-called “labor peace” is historically stronger in right-to-work states as opposed to states with forced unionism, as the AFSCME attorney argued. According to a recent analysis of government data by Maxford Nelsen at the Freedom Foundation, government workers in forced-union states go on strike more than 26 times more often than their counterparts in right-to-work states.
Could it be that this upheaval is a thinly veiled attempt to sway the court into accepting an argument made by a threatened union attorney during oral arguments? Government unions are losing their grip on forced payment from unwilling non-members and their desperation is putting children’s education at risk.
At issue in this case is whether public employees can be forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment. Janus believes this decades-old requirement violates his First Amendment right to free speech and freedom of association. His attorneys from the Liberty Justice Center and National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation have argued that everything government unions do is political — including going on strike and closing schools. Janus, and more than 5 million other government workers like him, should not be forced to support such political speech.
Janus’ attorney, Bill Messenger, rightfully told the court that this so-called “tradeoff” is tantamount to protection money.
“The proposition that agency fees are the costs employees have to pay to prevent unions from striking … would make agency fees effectively a form of protection money,” Messenger told the court.
Unions are scrambling to justify their practice of forcing unwilling people to bankroll their political agendas. Their victims in the workforce often just want to teach or do whatever job they’ve been hired to do, not. As America awaits the court’s decision, don’t mistake such union disruptions as the “tradeoff” for freedom; they’re desperate attempts to sway a court that could restore the rights of workers.
Teachers and others who work in public service deserve fair compensation, and it’s well within their rights to negotiate that with their employer. But resorting to old-school threats and tactics that put their own interest above those of students, the broader public, and even their own members isn’t the way to do this.
F. Vincent Vernuccio is a senior fellow at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and a senior policy adviser State Policy Network. Chantal Lovell is a director of strategic communications at the State Policy Network.
