Mike Antonucci, who has been sending out the Intercepts newsletter for as long as I remember being on the Internet, is the guy to read when it comes to getting the inside scoop on teachers unions. Right now, the biggest story is their fearful anticipation of an adverse ruling in the Janus case currently before the Supreme Court.
If the court rules as expected, teachers and other government employees in the 22 states that still have compulsory unionism will no longer be forced to pay a union as a condition of their employment.
Antonucci’s post today contains some rather amusing notes on a recent National Education Association summit, including the advice that the union’s communications staff gets for handling reporters. But the killer detail has to do with a survey that the union did of its own members about the possible effects of a decision in Mark Janus’ favor:
“If you woke up tomorrow and discovered that you could stop paying a fee to your union but the union would still have to represent you, would you still opt to pay?”
Among members to whom the union had talked within the past few years, 57 percent said they would not pay. If the union had not talked to them in the past few years, that number jumped to 69 percent.
It wasn’t all bad news for the NEA. Depending on whether they had been in contact with the union in the last few years, the survey was able to change the minds of between 38 and 81 percent of potential NEA quitters by making standard arguments about how the union would be weakened. The point of the survey was to emphasize the importance of personal contact with members.
But when you see that potential loss of as many as 60 to 70 percent of members on the horizon, and think of the effort it’s going to take to prevent that, you have to wonder whether NEA’s bosses regret all the years and all the members’ dollars they spent promoting ideological and culture war issues that really have nothing to do with education.
You know they’re not reaping the whirlwind now because they were excessively committed to children’s welfare or teachers’ rights.
