This just in:
New Union Membership Data Reveal Anti-Worker Assault Is Failing
Bureau of Labor Statistics Update Shows Public Sector Unions Holding Strong
WASHINGTON—The vicious anti-worker assault on American public sector unions—epitomized by the Janus Supreme Court case—has failed to gain traction, new data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirm.
Despite a multimillion-dollar, decades-long war waged by special interests on public sector workers’ right to join together for a better life—culminating in Janus, which was meant to “defund and defang” unions—official statistics show 2018 public sector membership held strong at 7,167,000, a marginal 0.5 percent decline, with total U.S. union membership at 14,721,000 million. Public service unions have all seen more membership joins than drops since the decision.
Since Janus was decided in June, its funders have poured millions of dollars into deceptive campaigns encouraging public service workers to quit their unions, while continuing to manipulate the judicial system to attack the rights and freedoms of working people. But courts are increasingly siding with workers over special interests in the face of attempts to further disenfranchise working families by asking judges to reverse pre-existing and sound law.
The legal merits, the facts and public opinion have always been on the side of working people.
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees President Lee Saunders said: “Momentum is on our side. Public support for unions is at its highest level in 15 years, and elected officials nationwide are embracing unionism as the key to unrigging an economy that overwhelmingly favors the privileged and powerful over working families. Our challenge now is to make it easier for working people to join unions—the one way for workers to get the dignity and respect they deserve.”
“After the Janus ruling I got a letter telling me that I didn’t have to pay fair share fees anymore unless I wanted to,” said Todd Bennington, principal planning analyst for Hennepin County Human Services in Minnesota and a member of AFSCME Council 5, Local 2864. “That’s when I became a member. Being a member is very important to me, particularly in the wake of that decision. It’s important because I believe in the power of collective action, that working together we have a lot more power to effect change in the world and in our own lives. A sense of community and connectedness is so much more appealing to me than the idea of every person for himself. Collectively, we’re going to get a lot better outcomes.”
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said: “It’s heartening that working people have seen straight through these right-wing groups’ brazen attempts to destroy our union and other democratically run, independent public sector unions. In fact, our union is growing, and winning. Since Janus, we have had 11 organizing wins, adding thousands of new members across higher education, healthcare and PSRP units.
“Union members have sent a clear message to the anti-labor right-wing ideologues: We are sticking with the union. While the right wing has many acts left in its playbook, Janus and the follow-up attacks have backfired. Educators, nurses, grad workers and so many others are joining unions because they see them as vehicles for a better life, a voice at work and a vibrant democracy. This week, the Los Angeles teachers are on strike to ensure students have the resources they need to succeed. The attacks will continue, but our members—and the American labor movement as a whole—are determined to stare them down and emerge stronger than ever.”
According to AFT member Holly Kimpon, a high school biology and anatomy teacher and president of the Genoa Area Education Association in Ohio, “It’s no different now than it was in June when the Janus ruling came out: The teachers in our district will stick together and stick with our union to make sure we have a say in the future of our kids.” Kimpon continued, “I come from a rural and conservative part of Ohio, and all but one of our teachers are dues-paying members, and not one has left the union. In fact, all six new staff members hired this year joined the union. Why? Because we know that our ability to create a safe learning environment for our students and make teaching a viable profession comes directly from being part of a strong union.”
National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García said: “Support for unions remains strong, even in the face of continual attacks on the rights of working people by corporate special interests, because unions represent the voice of working people in the fight against an economy rigged against the middle class. The NEA remains the nation’s largest labor union because educators—from West Virginia to California and in cities across America—know that together we have a powerful voice to make sure that our students have the public schools they deserve.”
“After the Janus decision, many people across the country wrote off labor unions,” said Jay V. Barbuto, a seventh- and eighth-grade language arts teacher from Phoenix. “You know what they didn’t consider? Reality. The constant struggle our students face in their schools due to a lack of funding and resources. Educators and support professionals who live check to check because of their undervalued pay. Educators like me will continue to advocate for our students and colleagues as a collective power—as a union—regardless of any decision made by politicians or powerful special interests.”
Service Employees International Union President Mary Kay Henry said: “The numbers back up what we’ve seen all across the nation: Public service workers are sticking together in unions because they know they are stronger together. When workers are united, they have the power in numbers to have a strong voice for the good jobs and quality public services our communities need.”
“I’ve had several conversations with co-workers about how important it is we maintain a united front to continue winning higher wages and better working conditions,” said Adam Korst, a graphic designer for the city of Beaverton, Ore., and SEIU Local 503 member. “While extremist groups like the Freedom Foundation continue to attack our rights and encourage us to drop our membership, we must strengthen our resolve and fight harder than ever. The assault on working people is an assault on all of us who have come together and gained the right to voice what we want and need in the workplace.”
Background
Not only does the strategy to get members to quit their unions appear to be backfiring, but so does the anti-worker legal crusade in the wake of Janus. Recently, in Danielson v. AFSCME Council 28, a case out of Washington state, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington tossed out an attempt to force AFSCME to pay back lawfully collected fair share fees that public service workers chipped in to help cover the cost of collective bargaining prior to the Janus decision. The court ruled that the fees were collected in good faith. In Fisk v. Inslee, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit also rejected an effort by such groups to cancel contracts made between public service workers and their unions.
-maybe it was a matter of workers not wanting to put their money where their mouth wasn’t regarding their hard earned dollars
– maybe it was that some didn’t agree with the political stances that were getting funded,
-maybe it was just a matter of supporting a political party that they didn’t vote for but had to support them monetarily.
I have no problem having workers support the unions since they negotiate salary and benefits – its the rest of the items that might support political powers that they disagree with for reasons they have –
-just maybe it originally didn’t involve not joining the unions.
-maybe when attending various mtgs one would get tired of being confronted by literature of candidates that they disagree with.
-maybe the Janus decision finally woke the unions up in a call for transparency and required some thought on how to “sell” themselves rather than expecting workers to just succumb to the idea of “we know what is best for you?”
-just saying
People who don’t want to join the union should not receive union benefits.
You are correct. But why would someone want to join the union if the union is supporting political agenda that is offensive to most. I think unions are great, and they serve a great purpose, but they have become bloated and too political with trying to buy politicians. People didn’t like HRC yet both teachers unions decided to endorse her anyway….guess who lost the election. Unions need to stay out of the mess of politics and buying political clout…..period!
Correction: Some people didn’t like HRC. And some people actually knew who she really was instead of reading only the lies about her.
Was HRC perfect? No.
Was she a corporate democrat? I think the answer is yes to that.
But she wasn’t a racist and she would have never set out to destroy the United States like Trump has. In fact, HRC has a history going back to her school years of supporting women and children’s rights and her voting record as a Senator also reflects that.
She also was behind a bill that was an attempt to correct campaign finance problems that passed both Houses of Congress, but a few years later was swept away when the GOP dominated US Supreme Court passed Citizens United. I think Citizens United was how the oligarchs got rid of HRC’s campaign finance legislation so they could continue to subvert our Constitutional Republic.
Should she run for president again? No, because there are too many ignorant, biased Americans that think she’s guilty of all the crap the Republicans have dumped on her for decades even though every investigation the GOP threw at her never found her guilty of anything. I even had a conversation with a MAGA hat wearer who said she was responsible for having her grandchild’s father murdered. Huh? I tried to find that conspiracy theory through Google and couldn’t find it. There’s an industry out there dedicated to smearing HRC with mostly lies.
Thank you, Lloyd.
Well put.
HRC is a corporate Democrat, but that is less dangerous than a man who wants to destroy the federal government and break the western alliance —NATO— to benefit Putin.
Putin must goto sleep at night with a big smile. He owns the US president.
You know what Lloyd, she would have been better than what we have and I think a lot people who chose not to vote understand that now. The DNC put out a candidate that wasn’t well received and I don’t think it was because of all the crap that the GOP dumped on her for years. I don’t give a rat’s butt about the email situation and I think most people could see through that one. She’s a Corporate Dem and the people didn’t want another “Obama” sitting in the Oval Office. The DNC gave her center stage and the Teacher’s Union endorsed her. Remember the outrage?….but the unions didn’t care that they made a political move that alienated a large portion of their base. I voted HRC because I didn’t have another choice, lots of people didn’t cast a vote, and some squandered their vote on Jill Stein. The unions need to do better if they want to keep their base happy and grateful to pay dues.
Lisa, the evidence is strong and it is obvious that if the Russian’s hadn’t meddled in the election like they did she would have won. I’ve posted that information here before in another thread for another of Diane’s posts with links to the sources, but I’m not going to do it again. Too much work to find all the sources and put the puzzle together.
The Russians focused on turning off black voters especially in battle ground states, and for the first time in decades the African American turnout was down 7-percent. For decades, that vote has been inching up, not down.
I do not think it is a coincidence that 7-percent of black voters didn’t turn out to vote.
Trump took the election with three of those battle ground states by about 80,000 votes. If the African American voters had turned out like they had for previous elections in every state including those battle ground states, Hillary Clinton would have won those states and the election. It was that close.
The Russian interference in our election was meant to defeat HRC and support Trump and it worked. For that reason alone, even if Trump wasn’t involved in the collusion (and I think he was all the way up past his orange puff ball of hair, Trump’s presidency is illegitimate.
Thank you Lloyd. I also think that Hillary would have been light years better than Trump in a whole host of ways. When it comes down to the general election, you vote for the less damaging candidate. As for unions endorsing candidates, why not? Donations to the union PAC are voluntary and optional, they do not come out of union dues, by law.
Not that I have always agreed with the political positions of my Union. However, the Supreme court was absolutely correct in one aspect of Janus. Unions are inherently political whether they are Public or Private. The environment that Unions operate in is determined by political decisions. The Congress through the Commerce Clause regulates labor law. Public employees are not covered by the NLRA and are at the mercy of State Governments and Legislatures. It is not about God Gays of Guns. The function of a Union is economic. Making Unions inherently dependant on securing the political environment that determines whether their members secure a piece of the pie.
Those who pretend otherwise are delusional. That does not mean that their choices are always good or correct. However, these political endorsements are fundamental to the purpose of Unions. From appointments to the courts and regulatory boards. To legislation from the NLRA to Taft Hartley to Scott Walker’s anti-union crusade we have hundreds of examples of political decisions determining workers fate.
The attacks on public/labor unions will never stop as long as the billionares hold onto their wealth and the power it buys them.
Expect the autocratic billionaires to do what they can to take over our courtrooms and control judges anyway they can. If judges are appointed, the autocrats will spend millions to elect and control the representatives that appoint judges. The perfect example are the judges Trump has been appointing to not only the US Supreme Court but other courts and when he doesn’t have a minion to appoint, he leaves the position empty crippling that court’s ability to do its job.
If judges are elected, expect record breaking millions to pour into campaigns to get their minions elected to these positions just like they have been doing to take over school boards and even state level positions like the Sectary of Education for California. The perfect example is Trump appointing Betsy DeVos to become the Secretary of Education for the US where she is doing her utmost to destroy public education across the country.
Expect the autocrats to attempt to infiltrate public/labor unions and fund the elections of their minions to take over and wreck the unions.
There are only two ways to stop the autocrats. We stand behind AOC and support increasing the tax to 70% for every dollar earned over $10 million annually from any source, and if that doesn’t work, we follow Thomas Jefferson’s advice for nurturing the Tree of Liberty but focus on the private sector Hydra of billionaires that are waging war against our Constitutional Republic and its democratic institutions.
The book “Democracy in Chains” by Nancy MacLean should be required reading for all elected officials.
We need a lot of “natural manure”. It’s time for the patriots to rise up. We have been asleep for far too long.
The resistance: There are now growing anti-racist groups in the U.S. and they sometimes fight back with violence against violence.
Black Lives Matter
https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/8/6/17653252/unite-the-right-2018-counterprotest-antiracist-washington-dc
Antifa
The Antifa movement is a conglomeration of left wing autonomous, militant anti-fascist groups in the United States. The principal feature of antifa groups is their use of direct action, with conflicts occurring both online and in real life. They engage in varied protest tactics, which include digital activism, property damage, physical violence, and harassment against those whom they identify as fascist, racist, or on the far-right
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States)
I don’t believe the Antifa movement started with anyone believing that “property damage” and “physical violence” was the way to go. It is possible the Antifa movement has been infiltrated by people who don’t actually believe in their cause but want to be violent and cause destruction.
Don’t forget that an employee of James O’Keefe’s very well-funded “Project Veritas” was caught on video offering large amounts of money for people to act out violently at Trump’s inauguration. There is no doubt in my mind that most of the very small number of people who act out violently at progressive protests are actually provocateurs who are simply pretending to believe in progressive causes.
I agree that the Alt-Right will do anything to make the left, or the middle for that matter, look bad even paying people to do violent things pretending to be on the left.
However, BLM and Antifa could be the beginning of an eventually armed resistance that won’t gel for years depending on how violent the Alt-Right gets. You can’t keep turning your cheek as it gets bloodied repeatedly. Eventually, you have to stand up and fight back.
Look for the union label. It says “Factory closed, moved to China”.
Where do you get your lying misinformation, Charles?
85-percent of the jobs that were lost in manufacturing were lost to automation. You know, robots. Click the links, read, and become educated in the facts and not the conspiracy theories and lying myths the far right churns out like rancid butter.
“Most US manufacturing jobs lost to technology, not trade”
“The US did indeed lose about 5.6m manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010. But according to a study by the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University, 85 per cent of these jobs losses are actually attributable to technological change — largely automation — rather than international trade.” …
“Automation has transformed the American factory, rendering millions of low-skilled jobs redundant. Fast-spreading technologies like robotics and 3D printing will exacerbate this trend,” says Ms Solís.
https://www.ft.com/content/dec677c0-b7e6-11e6-ba85-95d1533d9a62
And automation is taking away non-union jobs too!
“47% of jobs will vanish in the next 25 years, say Oxford University researchers”
“Accountants, doctors, lawyers, teachers, bureaucrats, and financial analysts beware: your jobs are not safe.” …
“The first fully automated restaurant opens in San Francisco.”
https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/47-of-jobs-in-the-next-25-years-will-disappear-according-to-oxford-university
There are a few things really wrong with America and ignorance like Charles has is one of the big ones. There are too many ignorant people in the US that believe things that are not true.
Sure, it is the Chinese robots asemble iPhones and Bangladeshi 14-yr old robots sew garments for GAP.
iPhones, computer tablets, flat screen TVs, VCRs. and DVD players and most if not all digital tech has never never made in the US. These technologies have always been manufactured overseas. And yes, China has also recently started to replace human jobs with robots.
But, let’s go back a bit to when the inventor of the video cassette player/recorder couldn’t sell his invention to a US manufacturer. He was told people would never buy them. He then went to Japan and sold it there.
“Over 12.3 million Americans are employed in the industry. But it’s not the powerhouse it was. In 1960, about one in four American workers had a job in manufacturing. Today fewer than one in 10 are employed in the sector, according to government data.
“Manufacturing is an essential component of gross domestic product. In 2018, it was $2.33 trillion. That drove 11.6 percent of U.S. economic output, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Manufactured goods comprise half of U.S. exports”
In 2010, the US manufacturing sector was in 1st place and China has 1.4 billion people. A third of what it makes is sold to its own people.
Today it is in 2nd place with 330 million people, and China moved into 1st place.
Germany is in 3rd place and produces about a third of what the US does.
Lloyd Lofthouse
“85-percent of the jobs that were lost in manufacturing were lost to automation. You know, robots”
I would like to see you document the veracity of that statement. Although as a generalization I have no doubt it is true. However, the devil is in the details. Although 85% of the manufacturing jobs since before 1970 have been lost to automation. That story changes in the mid to late 90s. Simply as anybody who does not live in sunny California knows; the rust belt oxidized long ago. Allentown, My HomeTown and Roger and Me, are the proof from pop culture of when those Job disappeared. By1990 those jobs were gone. Since NAFTA and permanent Most Favored Nation Status for China.
The Department of labor lists 3million job loses since 1994 specifically lost to trade and that is a narrow survey.
The TAA assists close to a million workers who have been affected by import related job loss. The Peterson Institute, the King of “Global Eliteism ” estimates that as few as 1 in 10 workers who are eligible actually apply for trade displacement assistance. So choose a number between 1 and 10 million but not less than 3 million.
Us radical left-wing populists are tough to deal with. We tend to search out statistics and not “manufactured consent”. What I will grant you is that the genie is out of the bottle and China has decided that its labor costs are too high. They have sunk massive investments into Robotics, causing a lot of displacement in their own labor force. We can be certain that whatever jobs are brought back if any, will be brought to highly automated factories with few employees.
Lloyd Lofthouse
Black voter turn out was almost identical to 2004. What it was in those pivotal states I don’t know. I will go one step further there was a conspiracy against the United States of America. A simple bribery case. A quid pro quo relationship between a foreign leader and a candidate for office. The thing you had to ask is not what happened if Trump won but if he lost as expected. If he won obviously the sky was the limit as sanctioned were removed and unlimited Russian money flowed to Trump. Including money from a 1/2 trillion dollar oil deal with Exxon.
The troubling part was what did the parties get when Trump lost. We knew he was looking for Russian money to keep flowing. We learned weeks ago the mechanism(among others) was a Trump Tower in Moscow. What did Putin get; Trump running around the Nation screaming lock her up for four years and Trump TV screaming that the good white people had had an election stolen by Mexican rapists who illegally voted 3 or 4 times each. Trump threatening to release the picture of the child sex ring the Democrats were running out of a DC pizzeria.
And when he won the first order of Business was dropping sanctions and establishing a back channel to Putin. Followed the next day by a meeting with Russian bankers.
But although social media may have had an effect. The Emails had far more effect. That no one read them was irrelevant. They screamed Hillary Dirty!!!!!!!!!
This is what I think.
No matter how this mess turns out, even if Trump ends up losing his fortune and spending the rest of his life in prison along with most of his family, and in 2020, the GOP loses the Senate and a few more states, but holds on to the US Supreme Court, Putin will come out the winner and the United States a loser.
The only way the people get back their Supreme Court will be if two or three conservative justices die of pancreatic cancer or have massive strokes all after a Democrat similar to AOC is living in the White House as president when it happens.
Our insatiable thirst for low cost merchandise and high ROIs drove the factories overseas… not unions.