Five Years after Janus, Government Unions Are Weaker — and More Desperate

T he U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME on June 27, 2018, that forced government-union fees are unconstitutional. By doing so, the Court affirmed what many people had felt for years: Public unions are inherently political, and making people pay dues to these unions is the same as compelling them to support a political agenda. The decision meant government workers could not be forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment.

Mark Janus, the plaintiff and a native of Springfield, Ill., was a state worker who was required to pay fees to a hyper-political, behemoth government union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31. AFSCME’s Illinois chapter was — and still is — notorious for steamrolling Democrats into contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, driving up spending and debt in a state that has been broke longer than anyone wants to admit. He did not agree with those practices.

By ending forced union fees, the Janus ruling provided a critical avenue for workers to separate themselves from views they did not share. Now, five years later, we’ve witnessed a radical transformation in the labor movement and government unions across America.

Just look at what’s happened in Illinois, long heralded as a deep-blue, union-dominated state. Public-sector-union membership has fallen by at least 8.5 percent since 2017, with at least 36,418 fewer government workers financially supporting government unions.

Each major government union in Illinois, except Service Employees International Union Healthcare Illinois and Indiana (SEIU HCII), has seen a decline in members and fee payers. Even SEIU HCII’s own documents, despite boasting it negotiates for 91,000 workers, reveal that at least one-third of those workers have chosen not to be union members.

When SEIU HCII, which operates across four states, is removed from the picture, the overall public-sector-union membership in Illinois has decreased by over 10 percent. These declines are not isolated to a single entity but spread across all public employers, with teachers’ unions such as the Illinois Education Association and Illinois Federation of Teachers losing a combined 9.4 percent of their members or fee-payers. AFSCME Council 31 — the union that represented Janus — has seen an 18.5 percent drop.

A significant decrease in union membership is a sign that workers are exercising their Janus freedoms. It also means that $25 million didn’t flow into government-union coffers in 2022. This is a financial blow to a movement that’s accustomed to having huge cash reserves to fund the politicking that gets the union bosses exactly what they want. Such a dramatic shift illustrates how many government workers feel underrepresented by their unions, pushing them to distance themselves from groups now charging more and delivering less.

Which points up another consequence of Janus: Government unions are in a fight for their lives. Desperation has made them even more polarizing, extreme, and political — and greedy.

Unions have partially offset member losses by increasing membership dues. While union membership has decreased, the amount unions collect in member dues has likely surged. Take the Illinois Federation of Teachers. It has over 16,000 fewer members and fee-payers than it did in 2017. Yet the union took in over $600,000 more in dues and fees in 2022 than it did in 2017.

Despite members leaving, unions are intensifying their political involvement. In Chicago, Chicago Teachers Union employee Brandon Johnson, whose campaign unions funded, won the mayoral runoff. More than 93 percent of Johnson’s campaign funding came from 20 unions, including nearly $2.3 million from his bosses at CTU. In Chicago, the CTU is now the mayor. Turns out you really can fight city hall, and even invade it.

Thanks to Janus, workers now have the power to opt out of the likes of CTU, disassociating themselves — and their money — from the unions’ political agendas.

Declining ranks have forced unions to find backdoor methods to preserve power. In November 2022, Illinois voters barely passed a new amendment that grants government unions power and authority that trumps state law, all under the oversimplified guise of “protecting collective bargaining as a fundamental right.” This amendment expanded bargaining to encompass broad, ill-defined terms such as “economic welfare” and “safety at work.” Illinois, of course, was the testing ground for a measure this extreme. Now that government-union bosses know it can pass, unions in other states — Pennsylvania and California, so far — are copying the tactics.

These post-Janus amendments reveal another intriguing pattern: Unions are broadening their demands beyond the scope of compensation and working conditions to advance their political and social agendas. For instance, the Boston Teachers Union has pushed for “housing justice,” and the Oakland Education Association in California went on strike over climate-change demands. These types of demands started making their way into negotiations before Janus, but the intensity and scope of government unions’ willingness to embrace issues that are well outside their traditional scope of worker representation has only increased. These union bosses now view themselves as leaders of a radical progressive political movement, not as promoters of the welfare of workers in a specific workplace.

The landscape of government unions has fundamentally shifted since the Janus v. AFSCME ruling proved unions are inherently political. Membership is down as workers exercise their right not to associate with organizations they feel do not represent their interests. Rather than respecting workers’ choices and recalibrating away from politics, however, unions have become more political than ever, resorting to raising dues and seeking legislative and constitutional changes.

Government unions’ desperate search for influence demonstrates that they’re dedicated to using their political power to push their agendas, even at the expense of their remaining members’ interests. The Janus ruling did not end the influence of unions. But it did push them deeper into social militancy and away from working for workers.