Elizabeth Hovde believes the state-union partnership helps keep public workers in the dark about their rights
Elizabeth Hovde
Washington Policy Center
It’s legislative season in Washington state, a time lawmakers can put policies and practices that need to be fixed into focus. One long overdue conversation is about the state’s role in how easy or difficult it is for some Washington state employees to exercise their First Amendment rights, as clarified by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018.
In Janus v. AFSCME, the court decided that government workers who choose not to join a union can’t be required to pay union fees or dues as a condition of working in public service. Since the ruling, public-sector-union membership has declined, despite an increase in public employment.
As an Illinois social worker and the plaintiff in the case, Mark Janus, said of the ruling that bears his name, “I’m thrilled that the Supreme Court has restored not only my First Amendment rights but the rights of millions of other government workers across the country. So many of us have been forced to pay for political speech and policy positions with which we disagree just so we can keep our jobs. This is a victory for all of us. The right to say ‘no’ to a union is just as important as the right to say ‘yes.’ Finally, our rights have been restored.”
Some public workers in Washington state are still not aware that they don’t have to give a portion of their earnings to a union with which they disagree. That’s not a huge surprise. Public employee unions in the state aren’t generous with information about this workplace right. Instead, they make it difficult for employees to opt out. A public employee can, therefore, be forced to pay union dues despite the Janus ruling.
The state doesn’t offer good information about Janus rights, either, even on a Washington state Department of Labor and Industries web page that is supposedly devoted to workers’ rights. Not only does the state make it difficult to find neutral information about this important workplace right, it distorts the question of whether union dues are required or optional by playing the role of dues collector for unions.
This state-union partnership helps keep public workers in the dark about their rights. Washington state lawmakers should remove the state from its union-dues-collection role.
Other states are working on ways to ensure that workers’ First Amendment rights are respected. The Evergreen state needs to join them. Public employees should pay union dues just as they do other personal bills, and the state should limit itself to protecting a public employee’s right to join or not join a union.
Read more about this state solution in a policy paper I wrote titled, “Washington state should stop collecting dues for unions and help protect worker rights instead.”
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.
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My very first job, at a major railroad, was covered by a union agreement. The union had been formed two generations before I was hired (I never had an option to vote to join or not join the union). The thug who approached me on my 3rd day of work to tell me I “had” to join the union did not explain what benefit, if any, I might have as a union member. It was simple, you need to join the union by (date) or you will lose your job. The union I was forced to join did not represent it’s members particularly well, we received pay raises that generally tracked inflation, but dues were always increased 1% higher than our pay increase as each new contract took effect. The union sent me a newsletter — that told me how the union supported government policies that I (and most of the other union members) did not support. Fortunately, after 7 years in the union I was promoted to a level where I was “exempt” from membership. The ultimate irony is that I’ve probably donated several times the dues I paid to the National Right To Work Committee, that provided the lawyers who won the “Janus Decision.”
Unions can be beneficial for employees in some circumstances. However, I’ve seen very few unions that actually obtains a “better” deal for employees that the employees might have gotten in the first place without union representation. I have also seen that unions have “protected” workers who should have been fired, leading to less efficiency and even representing a danger to other union employees. During my career, I became the company “hearing officer” in union “grievance hearings” where the most frequent situation was that a worker had violated company rules, by drinking during work hours. In a transportation company, intoxicated workers were often a danger to themselves and to other union (and non-union) workers.
While I don’t personally think unions are really very helpful to their members, I feel that workers should be free to voluntarily join a union if they wish to do so — and I also believe that workers who do not wish to join a union should not be forced to do so. (WA is a mandatory union state — that is, if you get a job covered by union agreement, you are required to join that union. The Janus Decision ONLY covers government workers who have a “right” (as described in the decision) for free speech that allows such workers to opt out of union membership. (Because the union may support positions before the government that are contrary to what a worker supports.)
Washington should become a “right to choose” state and give all workers the right to join or not join a union based on their personal evaluation of what their best interests might be.