Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, a political scientist at Columbia University who studies corporate and conservative efforts to weaken labor, said organized interest groups had traditionally had the greatest impact on elections by educating members about candidates and through on-the-ground canvassing rather than large campaign contributions. “It’s doubly so for unions,” he said, adding that the focus “seems like a wise decision, but the effectiveness has to be weighed against what happens to membership and overall revenues.”
The unions enjoy certain advantages. States like California and New Jersey have tried to ease the blow from Janus pre-emptively by passing legislation that, for example, guarantees public-sector unions access to new hires and their personal contact information to help in recruiting. Several mayors around the country, like Bill de Blasio of New York, are pledging to support similar measures.
There is also a substantial wind at their back: a rising energy on the left during the Trump era. Workers in particular appear more willing to take to the streets and state capitols, including tens of thousands of teachers who walked off their jobs this year in conservative states to protest the underfunding of public education.
When the Supreme Court ruled last month that employment contracts could prohibit workers from bringing class-action lawsuits, activists in states like New York, Vermont and Oregon escalated their efforts to pass so-called private attorneys general legislation, allowing workers to bring cases on the state’s behalf that could benefit all affected workers, the same way litigation by an attorney general would.
“We’ve had many, many folks calling: ‘I heard about this legislation you helped design. How do we make this happen?’” said Deborah Axt, co-executive director of Make the Road New York, an advocacy group pushing the measure. Ms. Axt said the group planned to campaign for the legislation’s enactment this summer.
That kind of energy appears to be benefiting unions. A Gallup poll last summer showed labor’s approval at its highest level since 2003, while a survey of teachers by an education group viewed skeptically by unions found that 85 percent consider unions important or essential. (A recent poll for The New York Times by SurveyMonkey showed bipartisan support for increasing teachers’ pay, but a split view on teachers’ unions.)
“We’ve seen a 13 percent jump in membership because of the walkout,” said Ed Allen, president of the Oklahoma City American Federation of Teachers. “We have over 300 people signed up to work in political campaigns. We’ve never seen those kinds of numbers before.” Teachers unions in West Virginia and other states where teachers walked off the job report gains as well.
