When the Supreme Court ruled in June 2018 that government workers couldn't be forced to join a union or pay dues, politicians in pro-labor states vowed to help their union allies maintain their membership. California, whose government has long had a reputation for being highly responsive to labor's needs, has outdone itself again in pursuing labor's agenda since the Court's decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. Recently, Sacramento passed laws expanding the eligibility pool of workers for public and private unions, reining in employers hostile to labor, and committing new taxpayer money to support the pay and benefits of union workers. Whether the Golden State's political class can help stop labor's long decline is another question—but give the state's politicians credit for trying extra hard.
The latest salvo in California's pro-union arsenal is a law that allows government-paid child-care workers to organize and bargain for higher wages and benefits with the state itself—which pays their salaries! If that sounds bizarre (why doesn't the state just pay them more?), remember that after Janus, unions can't force government-paid workers to join their organizations or pay dues and fees. That gets at the real purpose of the bill. It not only allows these workers to organize but also gives unions the right to attend orientation sessions to pitch union membership to new workers. In other words, the state has just extended potential union membership to 40,000 people whom it's paying to care for kids, and legislators helpfully created the organizing mechanism for unions to make their case to these folks. All this was done under the guise of boosting these workers' “poverty wages.” But in exchange for the privilege of allowing a union to bargain for them, they will have to pay union dues, which means that they'll make less than if the state had simply given them a raise.
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