Government unions are fighting President Donald Trump tooth and nail. The American Federation of Government Employees alone has filed numerous lawsuits to block the president from reforming the federal workforce and rolling back collective bargaining at government agencies. Unions claim that the president’s actions hurt workers, the economy, and even the country as a whole.
But this union fearmongering should be taken with a grain of salt. The last time government unions opposed sweeping reforms, they were dead wrong.
Recommended Stories
- Shut down the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, not the government
- Don’t let New York beta test socialism for the rest of America
- FERC reform is key to Trump’s working-class coalition
Government unions faced another momentous reform seven years ago when the Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME. The court held that public sector workers have a First Amendment right to completely withdraw from union membership and dues. In essence, the court created a nationwide right-to-work law for all public sector workers, including teachers, police officers, firefighters, and all other federal, state, and local government workers. No longer would they have to join or pay a union to keep their job.
Government unions hated this ruling, of course. In a desperate attempt to sway the Supreme Court, union-paid prognosticators predicted massive negative economic effects if the court ruled against unions. The Illinois Economic Policy Institute published a report that predicted the entire U.S. economy would shrink if the Supreme Court protected government workers’ First Amendment rights.
NO JOBS REPORT EXPECTED FRIDAY AMID GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
The parade of horribles was something to behold. The report claimed annual economic activity in the United States would drop between $11.7 billion and $33.4 billion. What’s more, it predicted wages for state and local government employees would decrease by an average of 3.6%, a $1,810 loss per worker. Salaries for public school teachers would drop even further: 5.4%.
These frightening claims didn’t sway the Supreme Court, of course, and good thing. These predictions turned out to be wildly off the mark.
Instead of an economic loss of up to $33.4 billion annually, the economy grew by an inflation-adjusted $3.1 trillion over the next six years, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. At the end of last year, the economy stood at $23.3 trillion.
Wages for government workers did not decrease. Since 2018, after the Janus ruling, state and local government employee average wages increased by 26.5%, a $16,500 increase. Wages for public school teachers are up 21.8%, according to the Census Bureau. Once again, that was the opposite of what unions predicted.
It’s also worth remembering that after Janus, the U.S. economy faced the COVID-19 pandemic and the devastation of the resulting government lockdowns. The economy would almost certainly be larger today, and wages higher, had the pandemic never happened. Yet even with that massive economic disruption, unions’ dire predictions never materialized. Government unions could hardly have been more wrong.
SHUTDOWN WOULD HAVE FALLOUT FOR GOVERNMENT WORKERS, THE FED, AND MARKETS
Right-to-work laws have a demonstrated track record of being good for the economy, leading to faster growth, higher wages, and better outcomes in the private sector. It stands to reason that a more free and flexible public sector workforce would reap similar rewards. But unions fought the Janus decision anyway. No wonder: That single Supreme Court decision has cost organized labor more than a million dues- and fee-paying members — i.e., hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for unions.
That’s why government unions opposed freeing workers in 2018, and that’s why they oppose Trump’s reforms today. Their predictions of a broken federal government won’t pan out because the president is bringing much-needed reforms to a bloated, costly, and wasteful bureaucracy. That’s good for taxpayers, and also good for the federal workers who are committed enough to serve the public, not narrow union interests.
Jarrett Skorup is vice president for marketing and communication at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.