Third Anniversary

Happy Mark Janus Day!

Happy Mark Janus Day!

Today is the anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in the Janus case.  I got word of the ruling while visiting the Mayan ruins in Tulum, Mexico.

The Union Mentality Is The Mindset of Children

I resigned my union membership in 2005.  They didn't have to, but the local union did the right thing and allowed me to participate in contract votes.  There was one hiccup, but it was resolved quickly and amicably.

Times have changed.  Yesterday I was told that I had been allowed to vote on contracts because I had been an agency fee payer.  In the post-Janus world, though, I don't pay a fee, so I don't get to vote on my contract.  Here's the email exchange that took place.  I'm tentatively removing identifying information:

Mr. Miller,

Thank you for your phone call inquiry yesterday regarding not being able to vote on the contract.

Our records indicate that you are currently a non-member of this association. As you may or may not be aware, Section IV (MEMBERSHIP) Sub-section 2(b) (RIGHTS, PRIVILEGES AND OBLIGATIONS) of the xxx by-laws states that only “active members” are able to vote. We would be happy to enroll you today and provide you the opportunity to vote on the contract.

If you would like to become a member, I would be happy to bring out a form so that you can sign-up to become a member. I can get the form to you anytime today, but if you would like to vote, it would need to be prior to 4pm. Once you have signed-up as a member, we will get you a temporary password so that you can vote on the contract. If you prefer, I can also bring you a paper ballot that you can place in a sealed envelope and I can provide that sealed envelope to the Elections Chair, xxx. He will include all paper votes into the final numbers.

Dr. xxx

Associate Executive Director, (local union)




xxx,

Thank you for your reply.

This is clearly a change, as I have always been able to vote on contractual matters since the days of (long-since former union president), when I left (local union). Clearly I don’t vote on strictly union matters, e.g. union reps and officers, but this change on contract voting is disconcerting.

When did the Executive Board make the change?

Darren





Darren,

I spoke with President xxx and the previous email expresses the view of the elected officers of (local union).

I would like to note that we have made no changes to the by-laws. However, the recent Supreme Court ruling has impacted bargaining unit members’ rights related to dues paying status.

As I mentioned in my earlier email, our by-laws contain guidelines on membership and voting. For your own edification the section reads:

2. RIGHTS, PRIVILEGES AND OBLIGATIONS (pg2):

a. Membership may be granted upon payment of annual (local union)/CTA/NEA dues through payroll deduction or cash appropriate to the class of membership and completion of a membership application.

b. The right to vote and to hold elective office or appointive position shall be limited to Active members.

Because of the loss of Agency Fee, some who had previously been granted voting rights as a result of their dues contribution, no longer qualify for those voting rights if they no longer pay dues.

As you may be aware, the Supreme Court ruled that membership can only be established through a voluntary process and cannot be compelled of any person not wishing to be a member.

I will reiterate my offer to come out to (your school) and bring you a membership form if you would like to sign-up. If we do that prior to 4pm, we will make sure that you have the opportunity to vote.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need clarification.




I’d be happy to join (local union).

I will not, however, be happy to join CTA and NEA. At all. They are the reason I canceled my membership. Please let me know when the unified dues structure is abolished so I can become a member of (local union) again.

Darren

It's unjust that they're allowed to negotiate my contract and I have no say in it at all.  The unionistas will say, Just join the union if you want to vote!  To which I reply, why should I have to?  Unions get special privileges--for example, getting to negotiate my contract!  In the Janus case the Supreme Court ruled that such privileges necessitate fair representation:

Exclusive representation of all the employees in a unit and the exaction of agency fees are not inextricably linked...

[A]voiding “the risk of ‘free riders,’ ” Abood, supra, at 224, is not a compelling state interest. Free-rider “arguments . . . are generally insufficient to overcome First Amendment objections,” Knox, su-pra, at 311, and the statutory requirement that unions represent members and nonmembers alike does not justify different treatment.As is evident in non-agency-fee jurisdictions, unions are quite willing to represent nonmembers in the absence of agency fees. And their duty of fair representation is a necessary concomitant of the authority that a union seeks when it chooses to be the exclusive representative.  (Boldface mine--Darren)

How can they represent me if they don't allow me to vote?

The above quote is from the syllabus, the following comes from the opinion of the Court:

First, it is simply not true that unions will refuse to serve as the exclusive representative of all employees in the unit if they are not given agency fees. As noted, un­ions represent millions of public employees in jurisdictions that do not permit agency fees. No union is ever com­pelled to seek that designation. On the contrary, designa­tion as exclusive representative is avidly sought.5 Why is this so?  

Even without agency fees, designation as the exclusive representative confers many benefits. As noted, that status gives the union a privileged place in negotiations over wages, benefits, and working conditions. See §315/6(c). Not only is the union given the exclusive right to speak for all the employees in collective bargaining, but the employer is required by state law to listen to and to bargain in good faith with only that union. §315/7. Des­ignation as exclusive representative thus “results in a tremendous increase in the power” of the union. American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382, 401 (1950).

 In addition, a union designated as exclusive representa­tive is often granted special privileges, such as obtaining information about employees, see §315/6(c), and having dues and fees deducted directly from employee wages, §§315/6(e)–(f). The collective-bargaining agreement in this case guarantees a long list of additional privileges. See App. 138–143. 

These benefits greatly outweigh any extra burden im­posed by the duty of providing fair representation for nonmembers. What this duty entails, in simple terms, is an obligation not to “act solely in the interests of [the union’s] own members.”

My local union wants the authority and power that comes with being the sole representative, but doesn't want to provide the representation.  They've taken a sharp turn for the worse.

Update, 11/24/19:  I've written about union privileges and responsibilities before.

Blatantly Ignoring The Law

I was an agency fee payer for many years before the Janus decision, and my local union as an entity never gave me any problems.  After the Janus decision, my local union as an entity did not give me any problems.  Not every teacher can say that, though, as some local unions use shady justifications to blatantly ignore the Supreme Court's ruling:

Special-needs instructor Bethany Mendez has been fighting for months to escape the teachers union in Fremont, California, but the school district continues to funnel a portion of her paycheck directly to the labor bank account.

She joined four other public school educators in filing a federal class-action lawsuit Monday against the California Teachers Association to stop the forced collection of union dues, armed with last year’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME.

“This is a financial issue for many people as well as a personal choice,” Ms. Mendez said at a press conference in San Francisco. “It is unfathomable to me that after even receiving a revocation of consent, and the passing of Janus, that the local and state unions would continue to assert this mandatory deduction from our paychecks.”

As far as I'm concerned, the suit should be against the school district. After all, it's the district that's taking her money and giving it to the union.

In an Oct. 12 letter, she notified the union she had resigned and revoked any dues-collecting authorization, but the CTA told her in a Feb. 8 response that she could quit only during a 30-day window described as “not less than thirty (30) days and not more than sixty (60) days before the annual anniversary date” of her recommitment.

Unions have always acted shady. They've always used strong-arm tactics. It's the entire history of the union movement.

CTA Affiliate Sizes

EIA has the number of members of each CTA affiliate in the state.  In his brief post there is a link to a PDF file with the affiliates ranked by number of members, as well as a spreadsheet file in case you want the information in some other format (alphabetical or by location, e.g.).

You might be surprised to learn how jealously this information is usually protected by CTA.  In the pre-Janus days, information about (especially) agency fee payers was a very closely guarded secret.

This, Right Here, Is One Of The Reasons I Don't Want To Be In A Union

Unions too often act like Jack in Lord of the Flies. They're bullies. I'm glad my own union didn't play such reindeer games with me:

The Los Angeles teachers union may have just ended a lengthy strike over a contract dispute, but could soon find itself back in court as a local educator filed a class action suit over forced dues.

A public school teacher has filed a class action suit against United Teachers Los Angeles, alleging that it illegally subjected her to a strict window period for resigning her membership. The teacher attempted to cut off her dues payments following the Supreme Court's Janus ruling, which declared mandatory fee payments unconstitutional, but was rebuffed by union officials. The suit argues that the "restrictive" resignation policy violates the First Amendment rights of teachers.

"After being notified of Seager’s decision to revoke any prior dues authorization, Los Angeles District and UTLA, directly or indirectly, nonetheless continues to deduct dues from her paychecks, in furtherance of UTLA's restrictive revocation policies," the complaint filed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation says. "Unless enjoined from so doing, UTLA and Los Angeles District will continue to collect/deduct union dues from employees."

I hope there's a very large financial settlement from the union--compensatory as well as punitive.

How Striking Los Angeles Teachers Can Save $1000

A couple of organizations have joined forces to put up billboards in Los Angeles telling teachers they can save $1000/yr by leaving the union:


Thank you, Mark Janus! And remember, I was there at the Supreme Court the day history was made!

Keep The Unions On Their Heels

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
--Thomas Jefferson

Yes, thanks to Mark Janus, his legal team, and the State Policy Network, among others, millions of us across the country have been freed from the immoral requirement that we pay an outside agency, a union, or else not hold the jobs we desire.  But don't expect that to be the end.  Already, unions are trying to find ways to sneak around that decision--requirements that people only be allowed to leave a union in a very short time window, for example, or trying to require people to stay in a union until the current contract expires (sometimes years in the future).  In California the unions have gone even further, shepherding through the legislature a law that allows unions (but no other organizations) unfettered access to new government employees--no doubt they'll inform such a captive audience about the right not to join or pay a union.

The Janus decision was not the end of our entanglement with unions.  Whether it was the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning, I cannot say, but it was not the end.  We must be eternally vigilant to ensure that our right not to pay is union is never infringed again.

Some will want to play defense and just swat away future union attempts to extort money from us.  Of course, though, the best defense is a good offense--so how do we play offense?  We cannot rest on Janus' laurels, rather we need to continue to take the fight to the unions!  Already there are lawsuits working their way through the courts asking that unions be required to reimburse those of us for the agency fees we were unjustly required to pay for so many years.  Here's another idea:

By recognizing the inherently political nature of public sector unions—which exist to influence government spending decisions, in addition to lobbying, political advocacy, and electing candidates sympathetic to their interests—the Court in Janus opened the door to First Amendment challenges to other common practices, such as taxpayer subsidies to public employee unions in the form of “release time” provisions...

With Abood overruled as a precedent, what’s next? If the compelled payment of agency fees violates the free speech rights of government employees, taxpayer subsidies of public sector unions should likewise be unconstitutional. In Janus, the Court compared public sector unions to a political party, and indicated that the First Amendment would not permit a state law requiring all residents to sign a document expressing support for a political party’s platform. Compelled financial support is equally problematic, the Court held in Janus...

Assuming that public employee unions are inherently political, that collective bargaining in the public sector entails political speech, and that compelled financial support of political speech implicates the First Amendment, the reasoning of Janus logically extends to direct payments of taxpayer funds to subsidize the operations of public sector unions. One of the biggest subsidies is the widespread but little-known practice of government employers paying the salary and benefits of union officials even though they exclusively perform union duties.  This practice, variously called “release time,” “official time,” or “association business leave,” is common at all levels of government—federal, state, and local—and is often sought by public-sector unions in collective-bargaining agreements.

This practice, sometimes described as “union time, taxpayer dime,” allows government employees who are also full-time union officials to collect their full salary without rendering any services on behalf of the public; to the contrary, union officials actively work against the interests of the taxpayers through labor negotiations, grievance adjustment, lobbying, and political advocacy. But for the hidden “release time” subsidy, unions would have to compensate their officers using union dues. Instead, taxpayers are forced to fund the unions’ inherently-political operations.

If they're ever given over to anything but anger, the unionistas might, just might, wonder why I want to take away so many of the privileges that unions have enjoyed over the years.  They'll accuse us pro-Janus workers of wanting to destroy unions, blah blah blah.  I don't want to destroy unions.  I believe in unions--just like I believe in voluntary associations of people.  What I don't agree with is compulsion, and the unions have been allowed to go so far with compulsion that they deserve to be slapped down, and quite hard, so that they hesitate before going down that road again.

If unions stuck to employee pay, benefits, and working conditions, I probably wouldn't be so strident.  But in the opinion of the Court in the Janus decision was a comparison of unions to political parties--and the comparison is certainly apt.  Unions are pretty much an arm of the Democratic Party.  Taking my money for all those years, and giving it to a political party I stand against?  You bet I want to slap unions down, good and hard.  It won't make them any less political--in fact, with only volunteers in their ranks now, they can justify being even more fervently left-wing--but I admit I want a little payback.  That, and I don't trust them not to try to chip away at the Janus decision (especially since they're already doing so, as I pointed out above), so I want them to pay a price, a continual, high price, for their efforts.

Keep them on their heels so they can't go back on the offensive against us.

Update, 12/8/18:  Here's another example of shenanigans.

Embarrassing Propaganda

After our staff meeting today, our union reps gave us a little update on contract negotiations.  But before that, they showed a video about the Janus case.  View it on YouTube and notice that comments are disabled; all we know is the publisher, and it's my local union!  No comments.  I wonder why.  Unionistas, and liberals in general, don't want to debate, they don't want to share ideas.  They want you to hear only one side of an issue, their side, and they'll do whatever is necessary to stifle any other view. 

It was the worst of union propaganda.  They start with how the Supreme Court overturned the 41-year-old Abood decision.  That's like complaining that Brown v. Board of Education overturned Plessy!  The loaded talk--did you know that "school choice" is billionaire code for eliminating public schools?  At the mention of those "individuals and organizations" who want to "destroy unions", and at several other times thoughout this video, I saw people looking at me to see my reaction.  Mostly my reaction was just to smile, or to roll my eyes and smile.  Most of them smiled back, they understood.

If this is the best my local union can come up with, it should be obvious even to a child that they're not worthy of my money.  And indeed, they're not.

Is it really so hard to believe that I can hold the views I do in good conscience?  I wish I was getting a paycheck from those evil billionaires whose only desire in life is to destroy public education so they can get rich(er) off private schools!  If the public wants public schools, they'll have them--why can't the public want both public and private schools?  I've said it before and I'll say it again, "Universal public education is sacred, public schools are not."

Watch out, unionistas.  I'm coming for you.

Gawd, they're so pathetic.  What a little temper tantrum.  They're so angry that they can't use my money to make such a poor video.

I don't usually badmouth my local union, but in this case?  I mock you.

So-Called Free Riders

Back in the olden days of a couple weeks ago and more, when I was an agency fee payer as opposed to a union member, one of the union arguments in favor of required agency fees was that I should pay so as not to be a "free rider".  I always countered that I was a "forced rider", and neither side in the debate changed its opinion.  This article discusses the "four key points" made in the Janus decision, and here's the section about so-called free riders:

The Problem of Free Riders

Next, Alito turned to the problem of free riders, who shirk paying dues but can still count on unions to bargain for them and represent them in grievance hearings. Without being able to compel some form of payment, union backers say, bargaining units will be unwilling or unable to advance nonmembers’ interests — and it would be unfair to ask them to.

Alito rejected that reasoning, arguing that the representation of all workers in a given shop is the responsibility assumed by a union when its members vote it into existence.

Unions are obliged to fulfill that responsibility whether or not they are rewarded for it by nonmembers like plaintiff Mark Janus, he wrote, and the privileges they gain from being the sole designated force arguing on behalf of labor — most importantly, a seat at the table in negotiations with management — “greatly outweigh any extra burden imposed by the duty of providing fair representation for nonmembers.”

Interestingly, Alito did leave open the possibility of a kind of fee-for-service model, with unions imposing a specific charge on nonmembers for specific duties, like representing them in grievance hearings.

“Individual nonmembers could be required to pay for that service or could be denied union representation altogether,” he wrote. “Thus, agency fees cannot be sustained on the ground that unions would otherwise be unwilling to represent nonmembers.

Excellent reasoning.

He Says This Like It's A Bad Thing

If this guy wants me to feel bad about the Janus decision, this isn't the way to do it:

Mitch McConnell is a big winner today. His refusal to let the Senate consider Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court seat opened by Antonin Scalia’s death led to Neil Gorsuch’s accession to Scalia’s seat, which in turn led to the spate of reactionary decisions the Court has since delivered. But no decision has mattered more to McConnell than today’s ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, for this decision has a direct and immediate effect on the partisan balance of power.

By stripping public-sector unions of the right to collect the fees from non-members they are obligated to represent in bargaining and grievance procedures, the five Republicans on the high court have effectively compelled the unions, which constitute some of the largest and most effective election-time campaigners for progressive causes and candidates, to lose the resources that enable them to do what they do.

This Had To Hurt

I received this in the mail today:

Writing that had to hurt.

I appreciate the respectful tone, and hope against hope that they'll live up to their words. I am far less optimistic that they'll change anything in an effort to earn my money, and thus for the foreseeable future I'll be saving about $700 in agency fees.

The Janus Fight Isn't Over Yet

While yesterday was a great day for worker freedom, the battle isn't won.  This author demonstrates that the unions will try, by hook and by crook, to circumvent the Janus ruling:

As many chapters of American history reveal, rights aren’t self-executing; they must be defended. Michigan went right-to-work in 2012, and the abusive union tactics that ensued gave us a close-up view of how unions might behave in a post-Janus world. That experience has prompted us and others to anticipate what champions of individual rights must do now.

The best defense is a good offense. Keep them on their heels:

Public-sector workers across the country are seeking to recover back wages they paid to labor organizations in the event the Supreme Court declares mandatory union fees unconstitutional. 

Class action suits have been filed against eight unions in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Maryland, California, and the state of Washington, accusing individual unions of violating workers' rights by collecting mandatory dues payments. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on a groundbreaking case, Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which challenges the constitutionality of forcing public-sector workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. The suits argue that any public-sector employee who participated in forced dues systems should receive financial "redress" from labor organizations.

We'll see how far such suits can go.

What A Great Day To Be An American--In The Land Of The Maya

I wouldn't say that today started like any other day.

Most days here I haven't gotten up until 10 or 11.  This morning, though, room service was knocking on my door just before 6 with breakfast--I had to catch a tour bus at 7.  I'd swear I didn't get a moment of sleep last night, but I was still able to get out of bed, eat, shower, and be downstairs in time.

Our first stop was Tulum.  I've only been there once before, in 1989, and hence my memory of the site has become somewhat hazy in time.  I had a camera with me, but I thought I should take a couple pictures with my phone so I could easily put them on Instagram later, so I powered up my phone.

I thought I had int'l roaming off, perhaps I missed a setting, but the notifications started coming in fast and furious.
Notification.
Notification.
Notification notification notification.
Notifi/notifi/notifi/notifi/notification.

Over a dozen messages and emails.  Clearly, something important had happened.

My heart started racing.  I had heard that perhaps the Janus ruling might come down today, and I hoped, hoped, for a positive ruling.  I wasn't sure I wanted to read them, but I just had to.  As in the Obamacare case, it would only take one out-of-place justice to make this ruling go the wrong way.  When Friedrichs was decided 4-4 2 years ago, I thought for sure that our best chance in a generation to eliminate forced unionism had died with Justice Scalia.  That was a very sad day.

I snuck a peek at a message from a politically-minded friend, and saw "5-4 along party lines".  That gave me the boost I needed to start reading the others, and what I saw overwhelmed me.  The Supreme Court ruled in Mark Janus' favor!  And I am to be free of being compelled to pay a union that doesn't represent me!

Here's what I was looking at when I started receiving the notifications:

For over 40 years since the 1977 Abood decision, freedom-loving teachers have wandered in the wilderness, looking for the Promised Land of Freedom.  I myself have wandered that wilderness for over half of those years.  But today, we were delivered.

The left in general, and unionistas in particular, are not taking today's news well.  Scratch a leftist, and a totalitarian bleeds--and many of them are showing their violent sides today.  One take-away is that elections have consequences.  All you Never Trumpers out there--had things gone your way, Felonia von Pantsuit would be on her 2nd Supreme Court pick right now.  Would it really be worth it?

In one day, Korematsu was repudiated, Abood was overturned, and the number of right-to-work states jumped from 28 to 50.  Is this a great day, or what?!

Update:  while the ruling came down today, don't forget that I was there the day history was made:

Update #2:  The Court, rather than a narrow ruling, went even further than some of us had dared hope (although the topic was mentioned in amicus briefs):  not only do we not have to pay a union, we don't have to opt-out.  Payment of union dues is now opt-in--and it's the law of the land!

Supreme Court Rulings

While the Supreme Court hears many important cases each year, I expend my hopes and energy on the outcome of only a couple.  After all, I'm not a liberal, I don't have limitless outrage!

As of today, I'm 1-0-1.  The win was today's ruling regarding the president's "travel ban" on nationals from 7 countries.  For those (idiots) who want to call it a "Muslim ban",

The court sided with the government, which argued in April that the restriction "would be the most ineffective Muslim ban that one could possibly imagine."

Roberts agreed with that argument. Though the ban applies to five countries with Muslim majority populations, "that fact alone does not support an inference of religious hostility," Roberts wrote, noting that those five countries amount to only 8 percent of the world's Muslim population...

While the court upheld Trump's travel restriction, Roberts noted that the ruling did not reflect the court's judgment on the "soundness" of the policy.

Good. That's not the role of the Supreme Court. Their role is to determine the legality of the presidential action, and they ruled correctly.

Liberals don't have to like this ruling, but it's the law whether they like it or not.

The tie was the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.  I'd have preferred that the Court go further than they did.  Must a lawyer accept every case?  Must an artist accept every commission?  Clearly not, but why not, when a store must sell to everyone?  There's clearly a difference (I'd argue there's an issue of "compelled speech"), and the Court should have addressed this issue once and for all rather than merely sending the case back to lower courts because of the obvious anti-religious animus shown by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission:

The court held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed hostility toward the baker based on his religious beliefs. The ruling is a win for baker Jack Phillips, who cited his beliefs as a Christian, but leaves unsettled broader constitutional questions on religious liberty. 

"Today's decision is remarkably narrow, and leaves for another day virtually all of the major constitutional questions that this case presented," said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law. "It's hard to see the decision setting a precedent."

My last big case for this term is, obviously, Janus. The Court has only a couple more days in which to issue a ruling.  For all of us agency fee payers, I hope they rule in Mark's favor.  And when they (hopefully) do, the next fun battle to watch will be this one:

Public-sector workers across the country are seeking to recover back wages they paid to labor organizations in the event the Supreme Court declares mandatory union fees unconstitutional. 

Class action suits have been filed against eight unions in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Maryland, California, and the state of Washington, accusing individual unions of violating workers' rights by collecting mandatory dues payments.

Update, 6/27/18: 2-0-1! The Court's ruling in the Janus case came down today!

What If...?

Mike Antonucci has a sobering piece over at The 74 Million called What If the Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Teachers Unions in the Janus Case?

Today's Post Over At Joanne's

NEA Thinks High Court Will Rule For Mark Janus

Here's One Time I Hope the NEA Is Correct

Does the NEA think the Supreme Court will rule for Mark Janus?  Evidence points to a yes, and I hope they're right:

The nation’s largest teachers union plans to reduce its budget by $50 million in anticipation of an unfavorable verdict in Janus v. AFSCME, a case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in February that challenges the right of government unions to charge non-members for representing them.

When delegates to the National Education Association meet in Minneapolis in July, union leaders will introduce a two-year budget that cuts expenditures by $50 million, an estimated 13 percent reduction from this year.

NEA’s budget committee forecasts a two-year loss of 307,000 members if, as expected later in the spring, the Supreme Court eliminates agency fees — mandatory costs to workers who don’t become union members but are covered by union agreements. Those near-term losses will almost entirely occur in the 22 states where fees are still charged, erasing post-recession membership gains in places like California, New Jersey, and New York.

Union Dues

My current union dues are a few quarters short of $1100/year.  Yes, I get an agency fee rebate each fall (but only if I request it), but $1100 is the amount deducted from my paycheck.  Via the Education Intelligence Agency, here are the state dues for NEA affiliates.  Keep in mind that this is just the state dues, not the local or national.

1. New Jersey -$897
2. Alaska – $740
3. California – $677
4. Michigan – $645
5. Hawaii – $610
6. Oregon – $607
7. Wyoming – $532
8. Indiana – $531
9. Pennsylvania – $523
10. Connecticut – $499
11. Massachusetts – $494
12. Illinois – $472
13. Minnesota – $471
14. Idaho – $468
15. Delaware – $463
16. Rhode Island – $455
17. Ohio – $454
18. New Hampshire – $452
19. Iowa – $451
20. Washington – $449
21. Vermont – $445
22. South Dakota – $427
23. Maine – $414
24. Montana – $412
25. New Mexico – $409
26. Nebraska – $406
27. Kentucky – $406
28. Colorado – $395
29. Missouri – $392
30. Kansas – $389
31. Utah – $382
32. Nevada – $378
33. New York – $378
34. North Dakota – $371
35. Arizona – $364
36. Arkansas – $359
37. Texas – $324
38. Maryland – $322
39. West Virginia – $310
40. Georgia – $300
41. Alabama – $294
42. North Carolina – $289
43. Tennessee – $288
44. Oklahoma – $287
45. Louisiana – $284
46. Virginia – $283
47. South Carolina – $275
48. Mississippi – $273
49. Wisconsin – $238
50. Florida – $234

That’s an average state dues level of $424.36. Include NEA dues and your average NEA member is paying $613.36 plus local dues.

California is #3.

Perhaps A Post-Janus World Won't Be As Apocalyptic As Union Stalwarts Fear

Joanne has two great posts up today:

What teachers make — with cost of living

Which states pay teachers the most and least when cost of living is factored in? asks NPR’s Cory Turner.

Study: Bargaining doesn’t raise teacher pay

Collective bargaining doesn’t improve teacher pay, according to a new study, reports Madeline Will on Ed Week.

Thirty-three states passed mandatory collective bargaining laws since the 1960s. Those states do typically have higher teacher salaries and higher per-pupil education spending, but they already did so “well before the emergence of collective bargaining rights or modern teacher unions,” the study found...

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule against mandatory “agency fees” for public-sector workers who choose not to join unions in the Janus case. If so, unions will lose members, money and clout. However, the West Virginia teachers’ wildcat strike has shown that teachers can get what they want without going through a union.

So how much will really change, besides more freedom for the worker?