OpenMarket: Government Unions

The progressive left’s calls to “defund the police” have extended to attacking the right of law enforcement officers to have unions. This has put organized labor’s leaders in an awkward position. On the one hand, they’ve been big supporters of the civil rights movement. On the other, they are wary of endorsing the idea that certain people shouldn’t have the right to collectively bargain.

Teachers unions are eager to see the COVID-19 outbreak end and things return normal because the outbreak has turned the U.S. into a nation of homeschoolers. Presumably, most of those parents would still rather have their kids in traditional schools but it appears that at least some will decide they like homeschooling once they get a taste for it.

As taxpayers, we trust our locally elected officials to act as fiduciaries of our hard-earned dollars. However, it is well documented that the government frequently fritters away tax dollars on activity that serves no public purpose.

Labor unions continue to deny the First Amendment rights of public employees despite the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Janus v. AFSCME, which ruled one year ago that non-union workers cannot be compelled to pay union fees as a condition of employment. Many public employees that want to drop their membership have found it can be exceedingly difficult to do so.

It has been nearly one year since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the First Amendment rights of public employees, but many members are still having difficulties exercising these new rights. In the landmark Janus v. AFSCME decision, public employees who are not members of a union can no longer be forced to pay agency fees, better known as forced union dues, as a condition of employment.

It has been difficult to gauge the impact of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME. In this ruling, the Supreme Court held that forcing non-members to pay fees to a union as a condition of employment is a violation of the First Amendment. Predictions on the fallout from Janus ran the gamut. Some predicted a mass exodus, while other believed few public workers would resign their membership.

“When you’re hired as a teacher, you should be teaching,” said Judge Jose L. Fuentes of the New Jersey Court of Appeals. This statement is commonsense and uncontroversial. Unfortunately, commonsense is in short supply across the United States. A vast majority of states allow teachers, and other state and local employees, to perform union business instead of the job they were hired to do.

On Monday, March 4, the California Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, upheld a major provision in the state’s 2012 pension reform legislation, but punted on the broader question of whether pension benefits are protected as contracts under the state constitution—and therefore cannot be altered.

Taxpayer dollars should be used to benefit the general public, not special interest groups. Yet, the state of Florida doles out a massive subsidy to government unions on an annual basis. This subsidy is known as union release time and permits public employees to perform union business on the taxpayer dime.

Earlier this week, I took a look at legislation that has been enacted to undercut the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Janus v. AFSCME. Unfortunately, state legislatures are just getting started. Today, I’ll examine a bill introduced in Oregon.