Union strikes are all the rage these days.
From automobile workers to television writers, labor strikes have dominated the news cycle this year — so much so that the Wall Street Journal has already named 2023 “The Year of the Strike.”
Most strikes we read about today involve private-sector unions, which have struggled to maintain membership, especially compared to their public-sector counterparts. (READ MORE: Poor, Unloved Dirty Joe)
The national union membership rate was about 10 percent in 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But when you separate union membership by private and public sectors, you’ll notice quite the disparity: The public sector union membership is five times greater nationally than private sector union membership.
This discrepancy is even more apparent in highly unionized states. In Pennsylvania, unionization is slightly above the national average: 12.7 percent. But the state’s private sector unionization rate, 7.4 percent, is significantly lower than its public sector rate, 50.5 percent — a sevenfold difference.
Private-sector union membership has been steadily declining for decades. In contrast, public sector unions, despite some setbacks, have thrived. While all these trade unions battle for higher wages and compete for our attention, public sector unions remain a prominent force in organized labor, wielding disproportionate power in our current political system.
Unions tend to be somewhat nostalgic, offering a reminder of a time when high-paying jobs drove economic productivity and produced a vibrant American middle class.
But public sector unions aren’t your grandfather’s union.
Public sector unions are political machines, currying favor with politicians and securing government contracts by funneling money from their membership dues to overtly political causes. Nationwide, the scale of this legalized money laundering scheme is achieving dizzying new heights each year. In 1990, public sector unions spent about $12 million in total campaign contributions, which included contributions to political action committees (PACs) and candidates. That number has ballooned to nearly $83 million in 2022 — a 590 percent increase. (READ MORE: AOC’s Leftist Sabotage Is Coming Home to Roost)
In Pennsylvania, public sector unions have spent $90 million in political action committee expenditures and $102 million of union dues on “political activities and lobbying” since 2007.
Although these unions finance the political efforts of both parties, they disproportionately favor the Democratic Party. Since 1990, public sector unions nationwide contributed $290 million to Democratic candidates and $29.4 million to their Republican counterparts — roughly a 9-to-1 ratio.
This lopsided partisanship by public sector unions fuels the fire of political polarization in our country and threatens our democratic norms.
“American government has a fatal flaw hiding in plain sight,” author and lawyer Philip Howard writes. “Public employee unions in most states have a stranglehold on public operations. Voters elect governors and mayors who have been disempowered from fixing lousy schools, firing rogue cops, or eliminating notorious inefficiencies.”
Even Franklin D. Roosevelt, arguably the most pro-union president in American history (sorry, Joe), was deeply skeptical of public sector unions. In a letter to the National Federation of Federal Employees, Franklin wrote (emphasis added):
All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.
According to FDR, unionizing public sector employees creates perverse incentives contrary to their primary function as public stewards accountable to taxpayers.
In the private sector, unions must remain efficient and limit their bargaining. They have to profit the company — otherwise, the businesses will fail, taking all those union jobs with them. The public sector is drastically different. “There is no profit in government, so the scope of government bargaining has no defined limits,” Howard writes.
Without financial guardrails, public sector unions have a blank check to weigh in on political and cultural issues — even when their members don’t demand that they do so. (READ MORE: Dumping the Term ‘Bidenomics’ Isn’t Enough for Joe)
In 2021, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), delivered a speech about critical race theory. According to Weingarten, a “culture campaign” wrongfully claims that elementary, middle, and high schools teach critical race theory. Weingarten also announced that AFT has raised $2.5 million to challenge any litigation related to public schools teaching critical race theory. That’s a lot of money to legally challenge something that, according to Weingarten, doesn’t exist.
Teacher unions are a genuinely disruptive force to the determinant of students. Pennsylvania leads the country in teacher strikes. A Commonwealth Foundation study counted 131 strikes over 19 years, resulting in 1,383 missed school days for 300,000 students. The recent teacher union strike in Penns Manor School District interrupted the middle of the school year and put the district at risk of missing the required 180 days of instruction. Although it lasted only eight days, the strike disrupted the lives of students and parents, who scrambled to find last-minute childcare.
Fortunately, a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision threw a wrench into the gears of government unions.
In Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Council 31, the Supreme Court prohibited public sector unions from imposing fees on nonmembers in unionized workplaces. This landmark decision fundamentally changed the landscape for public sector unions overnight.
Since Janus, public sector unions have experienced an overall decline in membership. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, public sector union membership dropped from 7.6 million in 2018 to 7.1 million in 2022 — about a 6 percent drop. During the same time, the nation’s four largest public sector unions — AFSCME, AFT, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the National Education Association — lost about 219,000 members.
These membership losses are hitting unions right in their bank accounts.
Since 2018, Pennsylvania’s major public sector unions — the Pennsylvania State Education Association, AFSCME 13, SEIU 668, SEIU Healthcare, and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) International Union 1776 — lost about 44,100 dues-paying members and fair-share-fee payers, resulting in $102.2 million in lost revenue. (UFCW predominately represents private sector employees, such as grocery workers, but it also represents many employees from Pennsylvania’s government-owned liquor stores and regularly partners with public sector unions on lobbying efforts.)
Based on the average length of service for public employees by union, projections suggest these Pennsylvania unions will lose about $49.5 million in the next four years.
However, despite these declines, public sector unions remain formidable adversaries, meaning there is still more to be done to challenge their influence and power.
In 2011, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed landmark labor legislation into law. Act 10 enacted several reforms that prohibited mandatory dues and limited the collective bargaining powers of public sector unions. One of its most significant reforms was union recertification, which required public sector unions engaged in collective bargaining to win a majority vote among every union-eligible employee annually.
Annual recertification proved to be quite a hurdle for union organizers. Marty Beil, head of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, told the New York Times that “if his union participated, all his staff would do year-round is to campaign for recertification.”
Membership with the Wisconsin American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 40 and 48 — which represent city and county employees — precipitously dropped from 35,823 members in 2011 to 16,661 in 2013.
And though Wisconsin created a successful template for others to mimic, few states have followed in its footsteps. More than a decade after Act 10 became law, only two states — Iowa and Florida — require periodic recertification of public sector unions.
In 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new law upping the recertification test to 60 percent. Unions that can’t meet that threshold must recertify under Florida law.
Of course, any new legislative effort to rein in public sector union’s improper, outsized influence will face a vigorous, well-financed opposition, which only reaffirms their improper, outsized influence. But until state legislatures codify recertification and other labor-related legislative reforms, public sector unions will remain a powerful, disruptive political force in our already polarized political culture.
Until then, the state of the public sector union remains regrettably strong.
Matthew J. Brouillette, a former middle and high school teacher, is the president and CEO of Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, Inc., an organization dedicated to improving the economic environment and educational opportunities for all Pennsylvanians.
Charles Mitchell is the president and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, Pennsylvania’s free-market think tank.
