Mark Janus, the plaintiff in the case Janus v. AFSCME in which the Supreme Court ruled that non-union members should not be compelled to pay agency fees, takes to the pages of the Washington Post to articulate his position:
Why don’t politicians just say no to the demands of the unions when they know the state can’t afford them? Because the unions bankroll into office the same people who ink their contracts. Unions are among the top spenders in elections, and they make sure that people who don’t support their demands lose their seats.
Since its contract expired in 2015, AFSCME, which I am required to fund even though I am not a member, had increasingly used the possibility of a strike to push the state toward accepting the union’s demands for higher salaries and benefits. I couldn’t stand by anymore while these policies were bankrupting the state. That’s why I asked the Liberty Justice Center to represent me and take my case to the Supreme Court.
I would gladly forgo my annual raise because it’s more important to me that the state get its financial house in order. I would happily have my pension converted into a 401(k), instead of piling more obligation onto the bankrupt pension fund. But I haven’t had a choice about either of these, and I have been forced to pay for a private organization that I don’t want to be a member of to negotiate for things I don’t believe in.
Union leaders said I did have a choice: Quit my job. Agree with the union or quit my job as a government worker. Think about that for a minute: To be a government worker, you have to agree with and fund a private organization?
In Illinois and in Chicago in particular, public employees are compensated very well. The state has the lowest credit rating of any state which means it pays more to borrow, the highest property tax of any state, and Chicago has the highest sales tax of any major city. Meanwhile, businesses and individuals are leaving Illinois so those who stay are stuck holding the bag. Property values in Chicago have been stuck where they are for twenty years even as property taxes have doubled.
All of these taxes are regressive—they fall hardest on those least able to pay. It’s really time for a change in thinking in Springfield and vowing to tax, spend, and borrow more is no change. It’s just more of the same.
One of the reasons that Illinois is in the fix it’s in is that during Rod Blagojevich’s term of office he funded pay increases for public employees by not putting money into the public employees’ pension trust fund, simultaneously increasing the ultimate pension liability while making it more difficult to pay. That’s the sort of creative accounting we need to change.
Janus is up to his eyeballs in horseshit. He is not required to fund political activiities. He is required to pay for services that federal law mandates unions must provide him. Union members pay additional dues and those are used for political purposes. If he or the billionaires funding his lawsuit had any evidence those funds were intermingling they would have presented it in court.
Actually he was told explicitly that he was. That’s in the transcripts.
Note that I am not anti-union. In my time I have been a member of two different unions. I am suspicious of public employee unions’ involvement in lobbying and politics and I think, as I have said before, that there must be some balance between public employees’ wage demands and the means of the communities they serve.
Where in the transcript can I find this evidence?
Ask PD. He’s the one who produced it and cited it here.
In Illinois, I believe most of public administration pay tops-out around ten years, meaning that employees will only get a COLA from that point on, even if they get a promotion. So, Janus is looking at this as I expect others might in his situation: all the unions give me is a COLA. I’m not sure how many will drop out of the union, but this one situation that might be more likely than others.
@Ben: the unions are required to give notice of the basis of the agency fee, and Janus’ notice said that it went to “lobbying,†“[s]ocial and recreational activities,†“advertising,†“[m]embership meetings and conventions,†and “litigation,†as well as other unspecified “[s]ervices†that “may ultimately inure to the benefit of the members of the local bargaining unit.†(Taken from page 4 of the SCOTUS opinion)
Added: I am quite open to the possibility that the SCOTUS majority took advantage of indefensible practices specific to Illinois. But AFAIK, public unions are not subject to the requirements of the NLRA or an federal law other than the First Amendment.
That’s my suspicion, PD, and I’m glad you brought it up. I’m in no position to comment on the situations of public employees’ unions in other jurisdictions. Illinois could be a special case. Corruption is certainly a graver problem here than in most states. Other than Louisiana, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, I mean. We’ll see how New York turns out.
I think Private and Public unions are two very different animals. Or maybe I mean state level Public unions vs. Private unions. IMO the Teamsters political influence is very minimal, especially as numbers decline. But the fact that they negotiate an enforceable contract with the employer is key for me. Employers, in my experience, will cheat to save costs where ever they can. Without that contract, without the means to enforce it, you can’t hold them to their word. With a union contract, you get your money back, always an accounting error. Funny how accountants only make that one kind of error.
“. But the fact that they negotiate an enforceable contract with the employer is key for me. ”
Enjoy it while you can. GOP goal is to destroy all unions, except maybe those of the police. (They generally vote GOP.) For the most part, they have been pretty successful.
Steve
PD,
I have no basis for challenging your statements on this, so I accept your argument.
@Ben, thanks, but I’ve been wrong before. I did scan / word-searched the opinion to see if the dissent ever mentioned lobbying, but they didn’t. Seems like they would have objected if there was an issue.
Janus did have the choice to opt out of what the union deemed purely political speech, presumably campaign contributions. The agency fee was 78.6 percent of full union membership.