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June 27 marked the five-year anniversary of Janus v. AFSCME, a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision about public employees. On that day, the Mackinac Center’s national Workers for Opportunity initiative announced its new board of advisors, which will guide the initiative’s effort to reform labor policy across the land.
The daily life of citizens is shaped in many ways by unions’ political activities: how our children are educated, what jobs are available, and how lawmakers spend taxpayers’ money. Workers for Opportunity has become, over the past five years, an indispensable resource for righting the balance of power between people and unions.
This year has already been the most successful one to date for our work.
We consulted with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration to upend public unionism and enact the most robust labor reform in the nation. A new law in Florida institutes paycheck protection — removing the state’s role in collecting union dues from teachers and other public employees. Our success there contributed to reforms in Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas.
Lawmakers in Indiana, Alaska and Oklahoma have considered Workers for Opportunity’s “opt-in” approach to unions. With opt-in, the state must tell all public employees, each year, that they have a right to refrain from union membership. The policy also requires employers to get proof of consent, annually, before they withhold any dues payments for a union.
This year, Tennessee became the first state to require that companies receiving taxpayer dollars protect their employees’ right to vote by private ballot if union organizers target their workplace. This protection, which Workers for Opportunity promotes, means that unions cannot intimidate workers into signing a public pledge of support.
We are proud of these successes and eager for more. Our new board members will share their policy expertise with us. They are proven champions of employee freedom, with a record of victories in labor reform. The members are:
With the board’s guidance, Workers for Opportunity continues to press for expanded employee freedom. We educate lawmakers on prospective laws that help public employees know their rights, ensure they have the secret ballot on questions about union representation, and allow them to withdraw from union membership without facing unnecessary or unconstitutional red tape.
We look forward to working alongside our advisory board members to usher in a new era of labor reform.
