After the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Janus v. the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 31 (Janus v. AFSCME) threatened to undermine government workers’ right to come together in strong unions, pro-worker state policymakers across the country responded by enacting a suite of laws to counteract the negative impacts of the decision and maintain strong state-level protections. Six years later, leaders have continued to innovate with policies designed to strengthen public sector collective bargaining rights, extend these protections to more workers, raise pay for the workforce, and partner with unions to train the next generation of public workers. The public benefits from unions’ actions to improve job quality because higher standards and strong labor-management partnerships help to attract and retain well-qualified workers and train the next generation of public servants. Yet many recent advances to support public sector bargaining rights and strengthen partnerships with unionized workers have been enacted in only a handful of states, and in some states, government workers have no bargaining rights at all.
The above excerpt was originally published in the Center for American Progress.
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