Waiting for Janus

UPDATE: First day after the Janus ruling wasn't too bad at the local. I'm anticipating it will be different in the coming weeks as right-wing groups roll out whatever mobilization plan they have.

Here's a good bit of analysis pulled from the comments section of the main NYT story by Adam Liptak devoted to the ruling:

Sean
New Haven, Connecticut June 27

This decision is outrageous, and Justices Kagan and Sotomayor rightly call it out for the naked partisan ruling it is.

Justice Kagan especially cites the cynical way in which the Republican justices cite themselves from over the past few years in order to overturn a law for no other reason than because they just don't like it.

Even more sinister, she and Justice Sotomayor note, is how they have clearly weaponized the First Amendment to prevent democratic governance in this country. They are paving the way for a libertarian dystopia in which any attempt by citizens in a system of self-governance to install necessary and logical regulations is crushed by a reflexive and meaningless complaint of infringement upon an individual's free speech.

Today's decision makes it abundantly clear that compromise with the radical right-wing GOP is no longer possible. They have only one goal: the complete dismantling of a democratic government in which individuals negotiate their own self-interest with the need to create a stable and functioning society as a whole. And they continue to demonstrate that there is no new low to which they will stoop to achieve that.

It becomes harder and harder to see how we are not barreling towards another civil war, in which once again nothing less than the soul of the Union is at stake.

****

The Janus decision will be announced by the Supreme Court at some point this morning. The local where I work has been preparing for it for months. Everyone thinks it's a foregone conclusion that Abood will be overturned, the 1977 decision which upheld the legality of the union shop and fair share fees in the public sector. The court was split 4-4 on Friedrichs, a similar case having to do with union shop in the public sector, because Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly.

What does it mean? If Wisconsin is any indication, public sector unions will bleed out quickly nationwide. I'm not sure that Janus will be as draconian as Scott Walker's Act 10. It could be. Some say the court is moving in the direction to outlaw all unions.

It's not good. Once the decision is announced, right-wing groups will contact public sector union members and ask them to opt out. Disgruntled and misinformed union members will then demand to be free of their local union.

It's an attack. Unions will have to marshal resources to respond. Our local is 20% public sector. Financially we can probably weather a worst-case scenario. But there are ripple effects. So much energy is going to be required to respond to a presumably significant number of workers wanting to opt out that other things will fall through the cracks.

I have worked for various union locals, central labor councils and Taft-Hartley trusts for nearly 20 years. During that time there always been some form of crisis. It has never been easy. I figured that I worked in a dying industry. But what industry isn't dying at this point?