Unions Change Their Tune on Janus: New at Reason

The U.S. Supreme Court is attacking working people by destroying public-sector unions. That’s the gist of the argument that the union movement has made as the court considered Janus v. the American Federation of State, Municipal and County Employees (AFSCME). Actually, their arguments were far more overheated, both before and after the high court ruled in June that government employees may not be forced to pay dues to unions—even for collective-bargaining purposes.

“The Janus case is a blatantly political and well-funded plot to use the highest court in the land to further rig the economic rules against everyday working people,” intoned a typical statement last year from the American Federation of Teachers, in expectation of the decision. “The billionaire CEOs and corporate interests behind this case, and the politicians who do their bidding, have teamed up to deliver yet another attack on working people.”

It wasn’t only union officials who made apocalyptic predictions. In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan argued that the decision “will have large-scale consequences.” She predicted that “public employee unions will lose a secure source of financial support. State and local governments that thought fair-share provisions furthered their interests will need to find new ways of managing their workforces. Across the country, the relationships of public employees and employers will alter in both predictable and wholly unexpected ways.”

Three months after the ruling, however, union supporters have largely changed their tune, writes Steven Greenhut.

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