The Janus decision and teacher freedom: One year later

By Larry Sand July 2, 2019

What has happened, what hasn’t happened, and why.

On June 27, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that government workers no longer had to pay dues to a union as a condition of employment, and the ensuing hysteria was a sight to behold. Loopy headlines like “How The Supreme Court’s Janus Decision Could Cripple Public Sector Unions” and “The Roberts Court Protects the Powerful for a New Gilded Age” were commonplace. But one year out, the apocalypse-is-nigh scenarios have failed to materialize. In fact, the unions are crowing that they are in fine shape, thank you. More commonly now, headlines read, “So much for the labor movement’s funeral.”

The teachers unions, especially, have barely suffered as a result of the Janus ruling. While the fee payers – those teachers who had quit the union but were still forced to pay dues – are gone, few others have left the union fold. According to Mike Antonucci, the National Education Association has actually had a one percent increase in membership in calendar 2018. Part of the reason for this is that, suspecting the Supreme Court would decide for worker freedom, the unions made a concerted effort to hang on to members by trying to get them, prior to the Janus decision, to “recommit.”

There is a much bigger reason for the non-drop off in membership, however. As revealed by a stunning new national poll commissioned by the Teacher Freedom Project, 77 percent of teachers have never even heard of the Janus case and 52 percent don’t know that they are no longer required to pay a union to keep their teaching job.

Additionally, for teachers who have decided to leave, the unions have thrown up roadblocks............To Read More....