Opinion: Help get word out that public employees have First Amendment rights

Elizabeth Hovde wants public employees to be reminded they have a choice; they don’t have to hand over a portion of their earnings to a union if they don’t want to.

Elizabeth Hovde
Washington Policy Center

Get together with a group of government workers and see how many of them know they aren’t required to pay union dues as a condition of their employment. You might be surprised how many of them don’t know this, even though this has been the law of the land since June 27, 2018.

Five years ago in Janus v. AFSCME, a Supreme Court majority stood up for workers’ freedoms. In a majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court said, “The First Amendment is violated when money is taken from nonconsenting employees for a public-sector union; employees must choose to support the union before anything is taken from them.”

Workers can easily opt out of union payments at OptOutToday.com, an online tool that assists workers who want to leave union dues behind.

Taxpayers are the ones paying public employees’ wages, not union bosses or lawmakers. And public-sector workers should know they don’t need to lower the wages they’re paid or belong to a union that has them financing politics with which they disagree to keep their jobs. Washington voters can also get rid of politicians if they feel they aren’t treating workers fairly.

Being free from paying a union that advances political causes or sends political messages with which a worker disagrees has been a hit with many. According to the Freedom Foundation, the four largest government unions in the country (AFSCME, SEIU, National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers) have lost 733,745 members, which is a decline of about 10 percent. This is despite schemes like limiting opt-out windows to keep union members, despite continued growth in the public workforce and despite solid communication efforts from unions or governments about the rights of public employees.

For a closer look at how the unions’ membership numbers have gone downhill, read the Freedom Foundation’s “Janus v. AFSCME at five: Government union membership at record lows.” Maxford Nelsen details numbers reported to the U.S. Department of Labor.

In some non-right-to-work states and among some unions, the percentage was much higher than 10 percent. For example, Nelsen writes that payroll data show the percentage of Washington state workers represented by AFSCME Council 28 paying dues declined “from effectively 100 percent in June of 2018 to only 61 percent as of April 2023.”

Some workers love their unions and find great value in them. It’s appropriate for them to give them money for their efforts. Others disagree with their union’s politics or mindset around competition, innovation and costs to taxpayers.

On this fifth anniversary of the Janus Supreme Court ruling, I want public employees to be reminded they have a choice: They don’t have to hand over a portion of their earnings to a union if they don’t want to. And lawmakers and unions should make it simple for workers to exercise their rights, rather than erect hurdles to keep them as dues payers.

Elizabeth Hovde is a policy analyst and the director of the Centers for Health Care and Worker Rights at the Washington Policy Center. She is a Clark County resident.

Elizabeth Hovde wants public employees to be reminded they have a choice; they don’t have to hand over a portion of their earnings to a union if they don’t want to.

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