Posts tagged Janus v. AFSCME
A New York Bill Protects Unions, Not Workers
June 15, 2026 // Assembly Bill A10835A makes it illegal to “falsely impersonate” a union representative. It gives Attorney General Letitia James power to investigate, fine and subpoena any organization in any state for communications she believes to be “impersonation” of a union. The fine is $1,000 per incident. The Freedom Foundation communicates with tens of thousands of workers. Do the math. The bill’s real purpose isn’t stopping impersonation. It’s stopping workers from hearing what unions won’t tell them: that the Supreme Court decided eight years ago this month in Janus v. Afscme that no public employee can be forced to fund a union. Since then, we’ve helped more than 278,000 workers nationwide opt out—nearly 7,500 in New York, including some 1,400 this year. Each opt-out means lost dues revenue, so rather than make a better case for membership, unions asked Albany to make it illegal.
Report: The diminishing power of teacher unions
May 29, 2026 // The result is A Crowded Table: Teacher Union Strength in 2026. Building on our original study, the authors set out to gauge teacher union strength in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.). Collectively, the 59 measures—which include 29 new measures that were not in the original report—seek to quantify union strength in five key areas: Resources and Membership; Involvement in Politics; Labor and Bargaining Policies; Policy Wins and Losses; and Perceived Influence, which draws from an original survey examining how stakeholders in each of the 50 states and D.C. perceive teacher union strength today. The states with the strongest teacher unions are Vermont, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Hawaii. The states with the weakest teacher unions are Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Mississippi. (See our interactive table on the report website for the overall rankings alongside the rankings for each of the five areas.)
Commentary: Josh Hawley’s Pro-Union Bill Would Let Washington Write Your Contract
May 16, 2026 // A Hawley-backed bill, known as the Faster Labor Contracts Act (FLCA), seems to be picking up steam and may soon pass the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, the FLCA is a trifecta of bad public policy: It suffers from constitutional infirmities, revives a corrupt government agency, and takes away the voice of both businesses and workers. Earlier this Congress, Hawley introduced the FLCA in the Senate, alongside one other Republican senator and three Democratic senators; he has since picked up another Republican and 10 more Democrats. Companion legislation in the House has 99 cosponsors, 17 of which are Republican.
One of Oregon’s Most Powerful Unions Is Rebelling Against Democrats
April 23, 2026 // Although many donors contribute to individual candidates, OEA sends most of its legislative contributions to caucus leaders, who distribute the cash to candidates in tight races. That ensures maximum influence with leaders, who in turn decide which bills get hearings and who gets committee chairmanships. (A 2012 study by the Fordham Institute ranked OEA the second-most powerful teachers union in the country—only the Illinois teachers union ranked higher.) In addition to large and steady contributions, OEA also developed a reputation for punishing Democrats who failed to fall in line, as Sollman is now learning. One infamous example still echoes nearly two decades later.
Op-ed: The Case Against Public-Sector Unions
April 9, 2026 // The reforms are commonsense: make re-enrollment annual and affirmative — if a worker wants to belong, they sign up every year end automatic payroll deductions so dues are a visible, conscious transaction require unions to disclose political spending the same way corporations have to These are exactly the kinds of reforms Oregon, New York and Hawaii are working to prevent — not by defeating them in debate, but by making it illegal to tell workers such options exist.
Op-ed: Florida made public-sector unions more accountable — Oregon did the opposite
April 7, 2026 // In 2023, Florida passed a law requiring a recertification election for public-sector unions that fail to maintain the support of 60 percent of their dues-paying membership. What followed was revealing. Between June 2025 and January 2026, there were 218 such recertification elections in Florida. In 192 of them — 88 percent — fewer than half of eligible employees bothered to vote. Under existing rules, the unions were certified anyway. For example, at the University of South Florida, exactly 41 employees out of 2,169 eligible cast votes for union representation. Nonetheless, the union now holds exclusive bargaining authority over all 2,169. At Florida A&M, three votes out of 202 eligible employees had the same effect. In one Broward County unit, two votes bound 51 employees to their union. The new bill will change that.
Democrats vs. the Freedom Foundation New York and Hawaii are copying a toxic union-protection law.
April 2, 2026 // The unions claim the Freedom Foundation is trying to trick workers into thinking the mailings come from the union. But the mailings all identify the foundation or its union educational outreach project in plain sight. Freedom Foundation’s Maxford Nelsen says it’s “very risky to continue our outreach efforts in the state,” and that’s the point. Democrats mean to discourage the think tank from dissuading workers from automatic union fees collection.
Opinion: Unions are on a comeback. Americans are paying the price.
April 2, 2026 // So far, the union comeback has mostly been confined to courthouses and state legislatures. Membership hardly budged last year, rising from 9.9 percent of U.S. workers in 2024 to 10 percent in 2025. Yet if more states continue to mandate collective bargaining for public-sector workers — or decide to repeal right-to-work statutes for the private sector — rates can be expected to rise in those jurisdictions. If workers at a unionized shop are forced to pay dues regardless of their membership status, more will opt in as the financial incentive to remain unorganized slips away.
How CA state worker unions have fared since landmark SCOTUS decision reshaped membership
March 17, 2026 // According to eight years of data obtained from the State Controller’s Office on the number of dues-paying state workers, some unions have slowly bled members since the Janus decision. For other bargaining units, the membership level has dropped 20% over that period. Labor groups representing peace officers and prison staff, however, hardly saw a change pre- and post-Janus. And still other units have increased the percentage of workers who pay monthly membership dues, the data revealed. Nearly 10 years before the Janus decision, the public’s approval of unions hit a historic low. In 2009, Americans’ approval ratings dipped below 50% for the first and only time since the public opinion polling company Gallup began assessing ratings of labor unions in 1936. In the years since, the public’s opinion of labor unions has improved substantially. Last year, 68% of Americans reported approval of unions.
Opinion Aaron Withe: Why unions love the ‘Billionaire Tax’
March 12, 2026 // It has attracted a coalition of supporters — chief among them government employee unions. That might seem like an odd pairing, but the logic becomes clear once you trace where the money is supposed to go. Sanders’ legislation would redirect the projected revenue — $4.4 trillion over a decade — into an array of new federal spending programs, including direct cash payments, a federal salary floor for public school teachers and expanded Medicare benefits. Not coincidentally, pouring money into such programs means more federal employees, more union-eligible positions and more dues flowing into union bank accounts.