Government Unions Show Membership Drop

It seems that, now that they have been given the option, nearly one-third of California government workers have opted out of union membership.

It could be wondered if that is the same one-third that does all the work, but that would be gratuitously cruel.

According to a Mackinac Center for Public Policy report, across the state about 30% of government workers have opted to leave whichever union they were a member of since the 2018 Janus v. AFSCME United States Supreme Court decision that allowed public workers to do so.

Since then, the report estimates that 17.5% of all government workers nationwide have opted-out of their union.

Janus found that, due to the heavy political spending engaged in by public unions (i.e. paying to hire your own boss by contributing campaign dollars to them,) that the free speech rights of the workers were being violated as not all workers would necessarily support the union’s preferred candidates and positions.

The workers are still represented by the union in contract talks but they are no longer members.

At the time of the decision, unions complained it would gut their finances and force them to work “for free” for non-members.

While membership has clearly gone down, said Mackinac vice-president for communications Jarrett Skorup, that loss has been somewhat tempered by increased union activism.

Note – the state has a total of about 2.5 million government workers – teachers, deputies, etc.  The report obtained data – through freedom of information requests, city records, etc. – for only the largest direct employers which showed a drop from about 656,000 members to about 463,000. That fall was then extrapolated out to reach the final overall estimate.

The California Labor Federation, headed by erstwhile legislator Lorena Gonzalez – best known for her disastrous AB-5 and pro-big union bills and for being married to former Republican turned Democrat drunken sexual harasser Nathan Fletcher, declined to comment.  As per Globe practice, the unanswered questions are listed at the end of this article.

In California, the type of government one works for seems to play a significant role in the “in or out” decision, Skorup said.

Some of the highest opt-out rates are among state employees – the state itself saw a 36% drop while the California State University system saw a 46% opt-out rate. Considering the typical political opinions of an academic, one of the more ironic statistics is that very high opt-out rate amongst university employees like professors and such not just in California but across the country.

Skorup said that may be due in part to the fact that it is relatively easy to opt-out due to their payroll systems. When the Janus ruling came down, the state simply added the opt-out process to the HR technology, making checking the box at any time obvious and easy.

Other government agencies have not been as nearly accommodating. Skorup said there have been many reports of an employee wondering how to opt-out, asking their city (or school district) how to and being told to talk to the union which then tells them to talk to the city.

Still other unions are continuing to use a “time window” system to opt-out; i.e. an employee cannot drop off whenever but must do so during a very specific time period, usually tied to their hire date (the window opens each year and its duration varies.)

Clearly, when given a proper chance, a significant number of government workers do not support the political goals of their unions and, therefore, the unions have less money to play politics.

That being said, it should be noted that the California Teachers Association itself (not including other government unions) spends about $40,000 per day on varied political activity.

The entire report can be found here.

California by agency numbers are attached in a word document below.

And here are the questions asked of the Labor Federation:

-Do you think those numbers are accurate?

-Would you care to comment on Janus in general?

-How much less money do unions have to use for political purposes now than they did pre-Janus (adjusted for inflation)?