Membership in public-sector unions has grown in recent years even as private-union membership has remained largely static. According to 2021 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate of public-sector unionization is about five times as high as in the private sector. Union advocates see unionization in government as the path to growth. To add to their ranks, unions that have traditionally represented workers in the private economy have started recruiting public employees as members.
Recently passed laws in Colorado, Virginia and Nevada have created more opportunities for unions to force public employees into their ranks. But public employees have constitutional protections, meaning that their union’s actions must comply with the First Amendment. Four years ago, the Supreme Court affirmed these rights in Janus v. Afscme, which prohibited unions from forcing nonmember public employees to pay them.
A court ruling is one thing; enforcing it is another. I’ve represented union members fighting to defend their rights against some of the largest public-sector unions in the country. Now I’m seeing a new trend: union officials in historically private unions across the Northeast outright denying that Janus applies to the public employees they represent.
For public employees represented by traditionally private-sector unions, understanding what rules and protections their unions should follow is trickier than ever. This is especially true when their own unions don’t seem to know the rules, leaving employees on the margins particularly vulnerable.
Tina Curtis,
a lead cook in the New Haven, Conn., school system, was a member of Unite Here, a traditionally private-sector union that also represents some public employees. After Janus, Unite Here representatives gave Ms. Curtis and her public-employee colleagues union cards that said they were “required, as a condition of employment, to pay dues and/or fees to the Union.” While perhaps legal for Unite Here’s private-sector bargaining units in Connecticut, Janus prohibited such a requirement for public employees like Ms. Curtis.
Once she discovered her rights, Ms. Curtis filed a lawsuit to assert them. Though Unite Here had even enshrined its unconstitutional requirement in Ms. Curtis’s contract, the union backed down when challenged in court. Ms. Curtis won a settlement that voided the union…
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