Unions duck, cover, and advertise ahead of Janus ruling

Across the nation, unions are bracing for a pro-Janus (worker freedom) decision. They are cutting staff and expenses and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on messaging campaigns.

Announcing that their advertising campaign comes on “a wave of collective action” (which is more like wishful thinking), the AFL-CIO invites all workers to come together in solidarity. Union boss Richard Trumka warns that “a dark web of corporate interests is trying to stop us with everything it has … but no matter what any CEO or lobbyist does, we’re standing for the freedom to join together in a union.’”

The advertising campaign isn’t directed at the justices who will make the ruling (which is almost certain to go against the unions), so what’s behind the big money move by big labor’s strategists?

Several things. First, anticipating that the ruling will go against them, the unions are using conspiracy-theory scare tactics to discredit the decision before it is handed down, cloak themselves in victimhood, and create a bunker mentality to keep their members in line.

Second, they want to burnish their image – “No matter what happens, never forget, we’re here fighting for you” – to try to limit the loss of non-members from their dues-paying rolls. They’re also trying to reframe the debate: This isn’t about individual freedom; it’s (somehow) about the union’s freedom and staving off the forces of darkness.

Earlier this month, according to independent union watchdog Mike Antonucci, “The California Teachers Association has voted to slash its 2018-19 budget by more than $20 million because it expects to lose 23,000 members with an unfavorable [Court ruling]…The 325,000-strong statewide teachers union also expects to lose revenue from more than 28,000 non-members who have been paying representation fees.”

The pre-emptive strike is also intended to sow confusion. Most Americans, and most of the non-union members who are forced to pay dues despite their objections to union stands and political activities, know little or nothing about the Janus case or, if Janus prevails, that it will free them from the chains that bind them to the union.

It was not always so. Italian-Americans like those in my family remember a time when unions were not-militant but associational in nature. They were there to support families, to engage when unfair practices were waged, to build professional camaraderie and respect for work.

But the world has changed, and in particular, Americans have made great strides and advances since the days since industrial age work conditions. The support the associations for teachers once provided has now given way to hard-line tactics of bargaining for lock-step pay without account differential in responsibilities, skills, and performance. On top of that, the unions spend most of their dollars on political activity to fight efforts that provide meaningful options for student success outside of union-supported traditional systems.

It’s this political activity that has the unions in hot water in education and every industry. When given the freedom to choose, as they were in 2014 in Michigan, union membership declined to 14.5 percent. In Indiana where union membership was at an all-time low of 8 percent in 2012 when the state enacted its right to work law, dozens of new businesses cited the law as the reason they chose to relocate there.

Naturally, all employees seek the kind of economic prosperity that was sought as a key tenet of this nation’s founding. Tying up employees in contracts that feed the union is not the way to go. We’ve learned well the impact of forced unionism on education where declines and stagnation track directly with increased union power. Fewer than 40 percent of U.S. 4^th and 8^th graders are proficient in any subject, and the U.S. consistently ranks low on international assessments.

There was no union plan or campaign to address that news from the latest edition of The Nation’s Report Card. Instead, leaders of these groups spend their time arguing that without them, teacher pay will remain low. They have been staging walkouts nationwide, and will continue to do so, working to convince teachers in public, private, and charter schools that they exist to ensure healthy pay scales. But it’s the very policies for which they advocate that keeps teacher pay confined to uniform, pre-prescribed levels that are activated not by accomplishment but by tenure and time in the classroom. They advocate for pension policies which ensure that younger teachers will never make the kind of money they want when they most need it, and oppose those that provide more opportunities for professional satisfaction, and much desired autonomy to do one’s job.

As for the potential for new professionals, mid-career changers, or retired Baby Boomers coming in to fill shortages, the unions protect hollow certification rules that have nothing do with quality or substance.

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Janus, as it well may, Americans may finally have an opportunity to reclaim education and craft new policies that ensure every student, teacher, and family can mutually benefit from the most fundamental of domestic issues of our day. As Thomas Jefferson cautioned, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

Jeanne Allen (@JeanneAllen) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is CEO and founder of the Center for Education Reform.