Portside

How did Connecticut, one of the wealthiest states in the country, get into a budget mess so bad that state workers were forced to solve it? The answer is that Connecticut is one of the most unequal states in the nation.

Unions must expand beyond narrow bargaining to challenge those who hold wealth and power at the highest levels. Most unions are accustomed to bargaining with their direct employers, as they have done for decades. But the financialization of the economy has rendered that structure obsolete. In order to win for workers, unions need to take their demands directly to those who actually have the money and control. They can often be found on Wall Street.

The court is considering whether to overrule its 1977 decision allowing states to require public employees to join a union or pay a fee to cover collective bargaining costs. A win for the plaintiffs—a group of California teachers who say they oppose union efforts to increase pay and protect job security—could cripple public sector unions in about two dozen states that have “agency fee” laws.

Anti-union laws don’t help the economy, don’t create jobs and don’t end ‘compulsory union membership’. They can only kill off unions

The court case could pose a major threat to public-sector unions whose clout grew in the 1970s after the high court upheld laws requiring all employees who benefit from collective bargaining to contribute to the union. Although teachers and other public workers may refuse to pay dues used to support a union's political activities, they can still be forced to pay a so-called "fair share" fee that covers operation costs.

Successful political movements, whether on the left or the right, require long-term investments in organizations that can develop and promote policy ideas over many decades. Such movements must continue to operate in between election cycles, and change the structure of government policy in durable ways that benefit a movement’s allies and disadvantage its opponents. One group that exemplifies such strategies is the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.

A majority of union members today now have ties to a government entity, at the federal, state or local levels. Roughly 1-in-3 public-sector workers is a union member, compared with about 1-in-15 for the private-sector workforce. The typical union worker now is more likely to be an educator, office worker or food or service industry employee rather than a construction worker, autoworker, electrician or mechanic. Far more women than men are in unions.

If the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of a lawsuit filed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, every state in the country would essentially turn into an anti-union "right to work" state, which would be a significant blow to public sector unions' collective bargaining efforts and also complicate thousands of existing contracts between organized workers and municipalities, cities, counties, and states across the country.

Facing reduced membership, revenue and political power in the wake of 2011 legislation, Wisconsin's two major state teachers unions appear poised to merge into a new organization called Wisconsin Together.